


Hanging Chad

by Thea_Bromine



Series: Et Praevalebit [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: BDSM, Discipline, M/M, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 23:21:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thea_Bromine/pseuds/Thea_Bromine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apparently people wanted to know more about Chad. And Ivo. And how Giles and Xander got on after the events of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1165600"><i>
Et Praevalebit</i></a>. And whether anybody got nibbled to death by ducks, or eaten by midges, and whether Xander was allowed to stay in the house. And whether everybody lived happily ever after, or even non-angstily ever after.</p><p>This story will tell you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1 - Xander 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings – M/M sex, BDSM, discipline, violence, the works. Everybody is of age.
> 
> Specifically: there are three sections to this. Part 1, Xander's story, is disciplinary. I don’t think it should give you the vapours if you’ve already made it through Et Praevalebit. (If you haven’t already read Et Praevalebit, this will make absolutely no sense at all. Honestly. None. Don’t blame me if you don’t understand it.)
> 
> Part 2 is the bit you were waiting for, involving Chad and Ivo. It has a Giles who is pragmatically violent and not altogether nice, but again, if you made it through the original story, you should be O.K.
> 
> Readers of a nervous disposition might prefer to drop out at the end of Part 2. No more Plot happens so you won’t miss anything. Part 3 is about BDSM. There’s no blood, and it’s all consensual, but I’m telling you up front. If you’re under age wherever you are, go away. If BDSM squicks you, then this is not for you. I’ll label the chapters so you know when to look away, O.K.? 
> 
> British spelling because this is happening in Britain. Cdangerfield helped by picking out the things a Californian absolutely would not say; occasionally I over-ruled him, so any hiccups are my fault, not his.
> 
> Specific chapter warnings: Disappointed Giles

He was half way across the track to meet the mailman when he realised; he stopped suddenly, his mind skipping frantically back looking for evidence that he was mistaken.

He wasn't mistaken.

Oh, sweet gods and demons, he wasn't mistaken.

He was so dead. The fact that he wasn't dead wasn't going to save him; he was dead. He was dead because they weren't dead, because it was only by the sheerest of sheer good luck that they weren't dead. He couldn't _believe_ that he had done anything so totally, completely, dorkily, loserly –  was that a word? like a total loser, anyway – _stupid_.

He was _so_ dead. Giles was going to kill him. As soon as he told Giles, Giles was totally going to kill him. Not that he didn't deserve it, because he did. He knew better than that, and...

"You gonna take this, pal, or am I invisible or something?"

 He jumped, violently; while he’d been freaking out the mailman had made it all the way down the slope, probably thinking that Xander was rude for not coming to meet him, and was pushing the mail at him disapprovingly. He muttered an apology and took it, turning back into the yard. He couldn't tell Giles. Giles would be so mad. Giles would be real disappointed. Disappointed with Xander.

And Xander couldn't bear that. So... Xander couldn't tell Giles.

But he had to tell Giles, because... well, because.

Couldn't tell. Had to tell.

"Xander?"

He actually screamed – well, not a proper loud scream, but a pathetic girly yelp.

"Is, is something the matter? You seem a little distracted."

Couldn't tell.

"No, just, I just, I was thinking." And wasn't that about the lamest response ever, because Giles knew that thinking wasn't exactly what Xander did best. "About demons and defences and, and stuff." Of course, that was what Xander _ought_ to be thinking about because Giles had set him an exercise. He'd got a list in his pocket, a list with descriptions of twenty demons and monsters and general bad guys, all of them more or less new to him, and by the next night, using only the notes he'd already got and extrapolating from types of demons he _did_ know, he had to identify the class of each demon, and come up with, as Giles put it in his driest voice 'how to deal with them'.

Xander was onto him, though. Giles had said 'deal' with them. Not kill them. Two months ago, he'd have been panicking over how to kill things he'd never heard of, and now he knew better. Now he knew to listen to what Giles actually _said_. Giles was careful about that sort of thing; Giles said what he meant, he was precise with his wording.  Xander was pretty damn sure that some of those demons weren't dangerous at all and could reasonably be left alone, and at least one was so mind-blowingly dangerous when it felt threatened that there were very few suggestions about how it _could_ be killed, and the best advice was 'back away calmly, keeping your hands where it can see them'. Xander, when he thought about it, was quietly confident: he had to write a paper for Giles, and for about the first time _ever_ , he was looking at a piece of book work, and thinking that he knew how to do it.

And now he had screwed it up. But Giles was just smiling at him approvingly, and moving off to his own work, and Xander felt like crap now because not only had he screwed up but he was hiding it from Giles, and although he didn't know anything about how proper traditional Watcher training was supposed to go, he was fairly certain that lying to the Senior Watcher, even by omission, was a bad thing. Was a bad thing even in non-traditional Watcher training like he was getting.

He was babbling in his head, he knew it. Babbling in his head wasn't any better than babbling out loud. He should just shut up and get on with his work.

He managed an hour before Giles came to ask him what was wrong, because he kept stopping what he was doing to stare into space. "You, you seem a little distracted."

He denied it, and went back to his task, refusing to look at Giles, who stood for another few seconds and then went off to his own work.

An hour later, Xander banged his head on the top half of Ivo's stable door. It hadn't swung open, it hadn't moved – he had just walked straight into something he could have seen from a quarter of a mile away. Giles dropped what he was doing and hurried over. "What happened there?"

Xander, with one hand clapped over his eyebrow, shook his head wordlessly. Giles coaxed the hand down, and touched a gentle fingertip to the sore place. "It's not bleeding, but I think you'll have a bruise presently. Xander, something is obviously... Is, is, have you heard from, from Buffy? Or Willow?"

He shook his head again. He knew it was an effort for Giles to ask about Buffy and Willow; he still didn't mention them often, and he still wouldn't talk to them on the phone, although he did read Buffy's letters and Willow's emails. He wouldn't answer either and he didn't talk about them, although he did listen when Xander repeated something they had said on their infrequent phone calls, or emailed to Xander himself. At the beginning, Xander had hesitated before talking about them, but Giles didn't tense up the way he had done before, so he'd kept doing it, not often, in the hope of it becoming just a regular thing, and after a while, it had done. Regular for Xander, not for Giles. If Giles was mentioning Buffy unprompted, then... then Xander must be freaking Giles out. He shook his head. "It's nothing. It's just Monday, you know? Monday hates me."

Giles smiled. "I'm glad to hear it. That it's just Monday, I mean, not that Monday hates you. There are just days like that sometimes, aren't there? Once it starts to go wrong, it just goes on and on until you think you should have declared yourself sick early on and gone back to bed." His fingers went on tracing the line of Xander's temple, tenderly; then he leaned in and took a soft kiss. "Perhaps if Monday has it in for you, you should leave sharpening the wood saw until tomorrow? I know you meant to do it today, but I rather like you with the full complement of fingers." 

He managed a shaky smile, and raised his face for a further kiss, his heart thumping until he thought that Giles must be able to hear it.

He lasted another half hour. Then he went to look for Giles.

"I screwed up, sir."

And that would be enough to tell Giles that it was serious. There were only two times that Xander called Giles 'sir'. Only one, really. When they were... when it was Kay, Kay sometimes called him 'sir'. Sometimes, but not often, because Kay preferred to call him 'Master'. No, if Xander called him 'sir', it was because it was a Watcher training thing, and it was one of the bits where... where Xander knew that Giles wouldn't be pleased. He forced himself to look up, just in time to see Giles do the eyebrow thing. He looked down again.

"I didn't set the wards last night. I forgot. I only realised this morning when I went out and they weren't... I hadn't done them."

That had been Xander's job since Giles had first started to teach him the complex spells that could be used to cover Ivo in his field overnight, as well as the walled enclosures of the house and stable. Xander had known how to protect himself in his tent, but Giles could weave a protective structure centred on a person, or a place, or an artefact, that could let some people through but not others, that could be seen or not, felt or not, that would dissipate after an hour or hold for a week. Giles had admitted, with a twisted smile, that he had expanded the wards to include Xander's tent within a day of seeing it. "I wanted you gone, but even then, I didn't want you gone down a demon's throat. I was glad to see that you had put up your own wards but they were rather basic. You need to be able to set up something more sophisticated."

He had taught Xander a new ward every few days; after a month he had made Xander decide which wards they needed and set up the ones he could do. After three months, the wards were Xander's job.

The silence told him that it was serious, not that he hadn't already known that. If it had been less serious, he might have been less... He had known that Giles would be angry. Disappointed. He had known that as soon as he said anything about it, it was inevitable that Giles would punish him, and punish him severely.

If he had said nothing, Giles would never have known.

"I... see."

Xander flinched. Two words and it might as well have been a twenty minute lecture. "I know! I know, O.K? It was my job and I forgot, which was dumb and careless, and might have gotten both of us killed. I know better! I've known better since... since about twenty minutes after the first time I met you. And you're mad at me, and you _ought_ to be mad at me, _I'm_ mad at me." He risked another glance at Giles and wished he hadn't. Giles didn't look mad: he looked disappointed. Xander examined the ground again. "What do you... I mean, whatever you... It's serious. I get that. A proper Watcher... Hell! I'm sorry. I told you this was a mistake! I screw stuff up, I just do, I don't mean to but I do and..."

"Mistake." There was no expression in Giles' tone at all. Xander winced again.

"Not me forgetting the wards. That's way bigger than just a mistake. The mistake was me thinking I could _do_ this! It was _you_ thinking I could do this..."

"Are you giving me your resignation?"

His heart thumped so hard his chest hurt with it. He was on the Council's payroll, which was a huge surprise to both of them; Buffy had somehow convinced them that he was Giles' assistant, although he didn't think Watcher training had ever been mentioned, and he rather suspected that whatever he got paid – and it wasn't much – came as a deduction from Giles' paycheck, but when he had asked once, Giles had told him to mind his own business. "Is that... if you want it. If you... can you... can I... I don't want to quit but I get that you think..."

"You get nothing. Stop being such a bloody drama queen." Giles sounded drily annoyed.

"Sorry. Sorry. Just... hell, it doesn't make any difference, does it? Whether I resign or you fire me."

"It makes a huge difference," said Giles crisply. "If you resign, you stop Watcher training. If you don't resign, you keep training."

He understood at once, and strangled on his words. It took him two attempts to get anything out. "I'm not resigning. But what... What do you... I'm real sorry."

"Yes, you said," agreed Giles, absently. He looked past Xander, at the house, and the outbuildings. "I shall give it some thought. I can't decide straight away, I need to think about what would be best to do, how to deal with it."

Oh, that was so not good. Any time Xander screwed up – and it happened way too often for his liking, and probably way _way_ too often for Giles' liking – it got _dealt with_... well, straight away. No, not exactly straight away. Giles told him at once what the sentence was, and the _dealing_ came later, but Giles never left him hanging. He opened his mouth to whine that it wasn't fair, and then shut it again. It _was_ fair. He'd signed up for it. He knew the rules. Hell, he'd _written_ the rules.

Giles was looking at him silently, still with that disappointed expression. Yeah, well, that was... he'd _never_ screwed up like that before. Hardly surprising if Giles was pissed at him. Hardly surprising if Giles needed to think about what Xander deserved. Xander wasn't kidding himself: this was gonna be bad, he could tell. This... He shook himself mentally. He had screwed up, through rank carelessness, and Giles was gonna punish him, and it was gonna be bad. But he wasn't fired and he couldn't say he didn't deserve everything he had coming, so the best he could do was try to behave like he thought a real Watcher would: accept correction, learn something, do better, don't grouse. Even so, his voice came out a little cracked.

"Yes, sir. I'll... I'll get back to work then."

Giles just nodded, and Xander went to the tool store, where he stopped and gathered himself, trying to think about what he'd been meaning to do with the morning. His wits were scattered; he'd had three things planned and he could remember none of them. He was aware of Giles' eyes on him, but he couldn't help it: he stopped and looked blankly at the things in the store.

"Xander?" Giles' voice was exasperated, but not angry; he turned, and found himself pulled into a hug. His arms closed automatically around Giles' waist and he buried his face against the broad chest, hanging on until he was sure that he wasn't going to beg or do something real dumb like burst into tears. Giles seemed to understand, just standing, holding him, not saying anything, because what was there to say? That it was OK? It wasn't. Or that it wasn't? Xander knew that.

"I'm an idiot," he said shakily, when he couldn't let the silence last any longer.

"Occasionally. I was an idiot too at your age. One grows out of it." Giles' voice was comforting, and he dared to look up, managing a rather twisted smile.

"Promise?"

Giles nodded once, solemnly, his grip on Xander easing. "Go on, do something useful," he said gently, and cupped his hand around Xander's cheek, steadying him for a kiss. "We're not dead."

"No thanks to me," said Xander, sombrely, and Giles tapped one finger against his cheekbone.

"But we're not. We'll deal with it, Xander. It's serious, I'm not saying it isn't, but don't make more of it than you need." He hesitated, his eyes searching Xander's face, his hand dropping to his side. "A week."

Xander caught his mouth opening to squawk, and snapped it shut again, but his face gave him away, he knew it did. He bit his lip hard, to stop himself saying anything. Giles, of course, read him like one of his own big leather-bound books. "Do you think that's unfair?" It was very gentle, and Xander had to shake his head. It was purest luck that they weren't both dead, or undead. It was fair. Hateful, but fair.

"Get on, then, Harris. You've got plenty to do." Harris. Giles only called him Harris when he had screwed up.

"Yes, sir." And Harris spoke respectfully to Mr Giles. Harris was Mr Giles' subordinate and he tried never to forget it. Harris was a trainee Watcher, and not a good one. Not yet.

Giles – Mr Giles – nodded once, with more sympathy than Xander expected, and turned away. The week stretched ahead.

He felt himself in disgrace all day, although Gi... Mr Giles said nothing about it. He was called in to eat at lunchtime, and Mr Giles made vague conversation about the generator, about the need to go to town the next day, about the otter that he had seen at the waterline a few nights before. In the afternoon, Mr Giles taught him containment spells for artefacts of the Gnosh class, and smiled approvingly when his third attempt brought about a pale green bubble lasting nearly fifteen seconds, patting him on the shoulder in congratulation. It was his turn to make dinner, and Mr Giles' turn to clear up afterwards, but he washed the pots as he went, and tidied up while the potatoes boiled, and struggled to make conversation over the plates. After dinner, he sat on the couch and started his Demons We Haven't Actually Known Yet But Which Are Like Ones We Have paper while Mr Giles did some translation work.

"Set the wards, please, Harris."

That was a punishment too, the fact that he was instructed to do it as if he didn't know that it had to be done. He flubbed the wording twice; Mr Giles was watching him do it, the way he hadn't done in weeks, checking up on him, because he couldn't be trusted to do it properly. He gathered himself, and set the final cross-spell holding the rest together. Mr Giles nodded.

"Goodnight." And he was gone, heading for the bathroom, water running, and the final click of the bedroom door closing, with Xander – with Harris – left on the outside, banished to the couch, and the sleeping bag and spare pillow. He might as well write some more of his paper; he never slept well when he was separated from Giles.

A week.


	2. Part 1 - Xander 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: Spanking. Xander hasn’t had a spanking for ages; he’s due one.

It wasn't new to him that a day could feel like it was never going to end, or that a week could feel like it would take the rest of his life. It wasn't surprising. What did surprise him was the way he couldn't stop looking at his watch. He knew it wasn't helping. He was unhappy, but he tried not to make it obvious. It wasn't Giles' – Mr Giles' – fault that he had screwed up, and he was well aware that hissy fits or obvious resentment weren't going to go a long way towards making him look like a responsible trainee Watcher. Once or twice, a mean-spirited voice in his head mentioned that Giles hadn't exactly been all adult and big-hearted in Sunnydale when Wesley had first come, but he stamped the idea down. Everybody behaved badly once in a while and however snippy Giles had been with Wesley, he'd turned out for his Slayer and faced down the Council, when most people wouldn't have blamed him for standing by and allowing Wesley to sink without trace. By the standards of what Giles had sucked up, a week of being treated as Harris rather than Xander was nothing.

And it wasn't like Giles was unkind. He was just remote: he was Mr Giles, the Watcher, the instructor, the employer. He watched Harris, and Xander hated it, hated the fact that everything he did that related to Watching was checked over, tested, before Mr Giles relied on it. Hated the fact that Mr Giles couldn't trust Harris's work. Didn't trust it. Hated the fact that he had cause not to trust it. He said nothing, just presented his work for approval and didn't push.

The approval wasn't withheld, either; anything well done was praised. He'd been right about not being able to sleep so his report on dealing with demons was presented in good time, and properly checked for spelling and grammar, or as close as he could get given that both his spelling and his grammar usually made Giles wince – and he'd fidgeted for half an hour as Mr Giles had read through it twice, and then subjected him to something he had called a 'viva', checking how much he could remember, asking for clarification on some points, wanting to know his reasoning on others. At the end, he'd had a 'very well done, excellent work' which had warmed him all the way to the next time he'd been called Harris.

Five and a half days, and he was beginning to allow himself to count down to the end, when Mr Giles set his book down on the desk, shuffled his papers, and looked around at him.

"I, I'm aware that you have found this difficult, Harris. I'm also aware that you have made every effort to, to handle it in a mature and responsible manner." The handkerchief came out and the spectacles were cleaned. Mr Giles looked up again. "I have taken into account that you confessed freely to me something that you knew would, would displease me but which if you didn't tell me, I would not ever be likely to discover. I am minded to remit the remaining period of your, your probation."

Xander was having a certain amount of trouble with breathing; Mr Giles flickered one eyebrow at him and added drily, "But not the other aspects of your punishment. We'll have it finished this evening, I think."

He said something, he didn't quite know what, but Gi... Mr Giles ignored it. Probably just as well. He was light-headed with a combination of relief and apprehension. Finished. Finished would be good.

The 'other aspects', not so much.

He played with his dinner rather than eating it, but Mr Giles pretended courteously not to notice; afterwards he went outside to check on Ivo, and stopped for a minute or two, stroking and petting the horse, and mustering his courage. When he went back inside, Mr Giles was putting away the file cards he still preferred to a computer database; he glanced up and said briskly, "Set the wards, please," but he didn't watch while Xander did them, rather slowly, and very carefully. Then Xander just hovered, feeling as if his hands and feet didn't quite belong to him, and convinced that if he touched anything he would knock it over. When Mr Giles turned, Xander actually took two nervous steps backwards; he thought the other man was amused.

"You know what to do."

He did. He'd done it before. He had to retrieve the big step stool from the kitchen and carry it out to the living room. He set it down in the middle of the floor and went to close the drapes. They weren't likely to have an audience, but he wanted to keep it that way. Wards were all very well but he made sure that he had locked the door, even though he clearly remembered doing it.

When he turned back, Mr Giles was settling himself on the stool, sitting so far back that only his length of leg maintained his balance. Xander went quickly to him, not waiting for the order, already unbuckling his belt. He hated this. Hated it. When Master wanted to hurt him, when he wanted Master to hurt him, he would try for grace as he undressed, or when Giles teased him with a spanking, he would squirm and wriggle and pretend to object to being stripped of his pants, but this? Dropping his jeans and his shorts in cold blood? He hated it.

No, that wasn't exactly right. He hated doing it, but what he really hated was the knowledge that he'd done something that made it necessary for him to do it. He shoved everything off his hips and raised what he knew were puppy-dog eyes to Mr Giles' face.

"Over." It was a quiet command, accompanied by Mr Giles' hand around his wrist, drawing him forward and down, quite gently and completely inexorably. He didn't need that, didn't need to be guided down: it made him feel that everything was slipping out of his control, and that was probably why Mr Giles did it, he thought, confusedly. The stool was taller than a chair and his own weight acted as Mr Giles' counterbalance, but it meant that he was right off the floor, helpless, unable to move much without the risk of upsetting both of them. It felt like something... like something Mr Giles did _to_ him, as opposed to the way it was at other times, when it was something Master or Giles did _with_ him.

It felt like a punishment.

He was tense and apprehensive; he felt Mr Giles' hand settle on his shirt, and he longed desperately for a caress, for a touch on the bare skin of his back, but he knew he wouldn't get one.

"Ready?"

More than ready. Desperate for this to be done, to be over, for everything to be back to normal, like there was a normal in a world in which he could be at fault for not working protective magic.

"Yes, sir." Ready as he was ever likely to be. Ready to put their relationship right this way because it worked, not for Mr Giles, but for him, because this allowed him to say 'screwed up, sorry, moving on now, 'kay?'

The first one always made him jump, he didn't know why. It wasn't like he wasn't anticipating it. It wasn't like it hurt more than he expected. It was... actually, he thought it might be the noise. He never remembered from one time to the next that it was so loud, in their quiet room. He could pick out all the sounds: the hiss and shift of the fire inside the metal stove, the slow tick of the clock on the end wall, a small grating noise that was the metal struts of the stool complaining under their combined weight, the faint whisper of Mr Giles' shirt moving as he raised his arm, the smack! of his palm landing on Xander's upturned ass, and after a minute or so of those steady impacts, his own snatched intake of breath becoming louder.

He couldn't explain it, even to himself: Giles could do this to him at another time and he would relax under it; Master could do it and he would beg for more. When Mr Giles did it, he struggled not to squirm, although he didn't try to get up. He just hung, while the burn built in his ass, and his breath caught until his gasps turned into tiny inadvertent whimpers. It hurt; it hurt a lot because he couldn't find the place in his head in which it was anything other than a punishment, and this was a long one. Longer than he'd had before. Well, duh: it was a bigger screw-up than he'd been guilty of before. Stood to reason that the consequences were bigger than he'd had before too.

When Mr Giles stopped, he shifted a knee to lever Xander to the point where he could get a foot to the floor. Then he politely looked the other way while Xander, face flushed with inversion and shame and pain, yanked his jeans back up his thighs, and fumbled his belt fastened. When Xander could look him in the face, Mr Giles, unsmiling, flicked a finger that sent him to stand facing the wall beside the door leading to the loch shore. Nearly over, he told himself fiercely. Nearly over. He stayed there, eyes down. It was part of their ritual; it never lasted long. Behind him he could hear Mr Giles taking the stool back to the kitchen, and then a tap running; it took a shocked moment for him to realise that Mr Giles probably had cold water running over his palm. Well, yeah, if Giles' hand stung half as much as Xander's ass... Nearly over.

A huge lump was building in his chest, he didn't know why. It was nearly over. He'd done this before. He wasn't hurt, not _hurt_ : his ass smarted and throbbed but not badly. It sure as hell wasn't enough to make him cry, but he was shaking, he couldn't get his breath, and only the fact that he had his eyes squeezed shut was stopping the tears falling. Fuck, he was being so dumb. He'd been... excluded, he guessed, grounded, but not indefinitely, and he'd been let off a day of it. He'd been spanked, not beaten. He only had to manage a bit of self-control, and it would be over, and he couldn't do it!

He heard Giles come out of the kitchen slowly, and then four much quicker steps bringing him close behind Xander; he felt the weight of Giles' gaze on the back of his neck, and then ritual or no ritual he started to babble. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I'm supposed just to wait, I don't, I can't, I'm trying! I'll do it, I, I, do you set the clock or something? Start it again, I'll do it..."

Hands settled on his shoulders, one of them noticeably warmer than the other, although Giles didn't speak, and a sob wrenched its way out of Xander's chest at this first touch in days. "I'm sorry, I'm, I'll..." and suddenly the truth bubbled out of him. "I never thought that this hurt you too!"

"Be quiet," said Giles, his tone free of judgment, and Xander swallowed hard, struggling against another sob. Giles closed in, arm around Xander's waist, until his chest rested against Xander's back, his knee against Xander's leg, and Xander gulped. "If I objected to the principle, I have had as many opportunities as you to back out. Since I have not done so, you are free to assume that I do not object. Should I ever find it intolerable, you may rely on me telling you so, just as I rely on you telling me when this ceases to be an acceptable method of keeping your mind on your work." Oh. Well, yeah, he guessed so. He thought about that, feeling Giles, feeling the heat of him through his shirt, feeling Giles' hands on him, Giles holding him up, keeping him safe. His breath hitched once or twice, and slowly he stilled, the tremors that had been running through him easing, absorbed by Giles.

"Quiet," admonished Giles again. "Breathe. Run through the relaxation exercise I showed you on Thursday. Think of nothing but your breathing."

Given an instruction, he could obey. Given something physical to think about, he could stop thinking about how much of a selfish dork he was, about the fact that the burn in his ass, which he had earned, must be balanced by a burn in Giles' hand, which Giles certainly hadn't. He could put aside for later consideration the realisation that if he was miserable when he was separated from Giles, Giles might not like being separated from Xander either, that every time Xander earned a punishment, Giles was punished too. His breathing steadied; the panic abated. Nearly over. Presently Giles let go and stepped away but by then he was calm enough to wait. He heard Giles moving about, heard the toilet flush and water run, and then from the doorway, he heard Giles' voice.

"Come to bed, Xander."


	3. Part 1 - Xander 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: Recovery. Only a small chapter. The next one is bigger, I promise.

By the time he made it out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, Giles was already under the covers, propped on his pillows, turning the page of whatever cheap thriller he had collected from the second hand book stall on the market the last time they had been to town. Xander, tugging a soft tee shirt over his head – Scotland's climate didn't encourage him to go to bed naked, although clothing was frequently abandoned later, not that it would be tonight – didn't, apparently, warrant more than a glance and a smile.

He wriggled into bed with a sigh of relief. The only thing that could be said in favour of the couch in their living room was that it was more comfortable than the one in Giles' Sunnydale apartment; the bed was way better. The bed was where he ought to be.

He would have liked to be close, but... well. He was always a bit awkward after he'd been... he found he was avoiding the word, and said it firmly, not out loud but in his head. After he'd screwed up and he'd been spanked. It had taken them a bit of time and some manoeuvring to get it right in both their heads. To begin with, it was kinda minor, a formality for Giles to get them back on track. A couple of times, it wasn't really enough, and they both knew it, but Giles had let it pass, like it _was_ just a formality. Then there had been one bad time, when Xander didn't think he had done anything to deserve a punishment but Giles did, and Xander... Xander had _taken_ it, but he'd been resentful, rather than repentant, and maybe that was why it had seemed to hurt more than before. He'd been sullen and sulky afterwards until Giles, irritated and embarrassed – because the G-Man _totally_ did not do discussing their relationship – had _made_ him talk about it, and admit that he did resent it. They'd had a _huge_ argument, at the end of which Giles had reminded him angrily that he had promised not to do that, not to accept a punishment he didn't think was fair, or that he didn't understand. They had _both_ sulked for most of an evening, and then quarrelled some more until Giles had snapped that it was just another example of Xander's laziness – that he wouldn't take the trouble to try to understand what he had done wrong, or to convince Giles that he hadn't _done_ anything wrong, he was just taking the quick way out – and then complaining about what had been his own choice. When he had opened his mouth indignantly to deny it, Giles had cocked his head to one side and raised one eyebrow the way he did, and it had checked Xander just for a moment, just long enough for him not to snap back. He'd actually stopped and asked himself if Giles was right – and while it wasn't totally true, there was enough truth to it that he hadn't been quite comfortable. He'd looked away, and Giles had said exhaustedly, "Xander, you asked me to do this. I can't do it if... I can't do it if you're going to treat me as if I were an unreasonable parent. I can't... I have enough trouble with the fact that you're so much younger than I am, and that I'm supposed to be training you. Those are both big arguments for anybody who would say that our, our relationship was, that I'm, that I have an unhealthy influence on you. If you, if you want me to be, if we're going to have a personal relationship as well as a professional one, you can't, you can't..."

He had run down, but Xander had understood him. "I can't throw a tantrum like some kid, and stamp my foot and yell that it's not fair. If it's not fair... I said I would tell you, didn't I?"

Giles had nodded, once, and Xander could see that he was deeply unhappy. "And I didn't. Yeah. I get that I can't do that."

"I'm not a mind-reader," said Giles, a little more gently. "If I tell you that you're in the wrong and you don't challenge me..."

"You're gonna assume that I get why you're mad."

"I can't do anything _but_ assume that you know why I'm... I'm not always _angry_. That you understand what you did wrong, and why it was wrong. And... well, really, and why you _should_ have known that it was wrong. I don't want to punish you for ignorance, only for a lack of application. I, I, actually, I don't _want_ to punish you at all."

He got it. If Watcher Giles said "come and be spanked" and Xander went, it was only fair that Giles would think that _Xander_ thought he'd done something to deserve it.

That time, it had taken them until the early hours of the morning to sort out why Giles had been annoyed, and why Xander hadn't understood, but neither of them had made that mistake again. Giles had said, rather tentatively, that perhaps he had been too severe, that he shouldn't have punished Xander when Xander hadn't understood; Xander had countered that if he hadn't deserved what he'd got for what he'd done, he'd deserved it for being too lazy to defend himself.

He'd been wigged by it, though, and he thought Giles had too; that was why Giles had asked this time – he asked every time now – if Xander thought that a week was fair. If Xander had said that it wasn't fair, Giles would have treated it as the start of a negotiation.

Once, after a spanking, he'd tried to coax Giles into sex, and Giles had said no; he'd pushed, and Giles had repeated the No, and told him that he wasn't to do it, that a punishment spanking was just that, a punishment and not foreplay. When he'd tried again – he couldn't understand why he'd tried anything so dumb – Giles had turned him out of bed and spanked him again, hard, and then sent him to sleep on the couch. The G-Man had worked out from his reaction that for Xander, that was the real punishment, and when they hit serious stuff, that was what he used. The spanking was minor and yeah, it was really only what they used to complete the ritual, but Xander had to accept the whole package, and he had to accept that it wasn't about sex.

So he lay on his side, watching Giles read, and not pushing in, because he didn't _like_ sleeping anywhere that wasn't with Giles, and he wasn't gonna jeopardise that just because he'd freaked out when he'd had to stand and look at a blank wall. Yeah, like he was fooling Giles. The book was shifted from left hand to right, so that Giles could slide an arm under Xander's neck, could tug his shoulder until he came close, could turn far enough to brush his lips over Xander's forehead, before returning his attention to the page.

He sighed, and let his eyes drift shut.


	4. Part 1 - Xander 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: Oh look, what a surprise, it’s angst, in a story by Thea. Who’d have thought it?

It was a demon, it was a demon, it was a fucking _demon_ , nothing else could make a noise like that!

He half fell out of bed, totally awake but utterly confused, with a side order of terrified, and snatched at anything that might be a weapon. The noise came again, and he bolted for the window, remembering only at the last moment what Giles had taught him about not allowing himself to be seen before he knew who was looking. Giles himself followed, rather more slowly.

"Xander? It's a little late for housework."

"Huh?"

Giles reached behind him, turned on the bedside lamp, and inspected Xander carefully. Then he indicated the vacuum cleaner suction tube in Xander's hand.

"I... oh. Um. I think I wanted a sword, or stake or something. Um, what was that? I'm guessing since you aren't grabbing for weapons that it's not a demon?"

"I think it was probably a rabbit."

_"Rabbit?"_

"The, the cat from the farm hunts out here sometimes. Or, or it might have been a fox rather than a cat. I think something's caught a rabbit. They, they scream, poor things, I'm surprised you never heard it when you were living in the tent. No, not a demon."

Xander sat down on the bed, rather more suddenly than he expected, the metal tube slipping from his fingers. Why was the damn thing in the bedroom anyway? "Oh. Good." He leaned forward and looked between his knees until the room stopped swaying.

"Xander?" The bed shifted as Giles sat down beside him.

He swallowed. "Sorry. God. I just..."

"You're shaking! Get back into bed, Xander; lie down."

He shook his head. "I'm... I'm fine. Only, only startled awake, you know. I'll just go..." He got up; his legs seemed less supportive than usual, but he made it as far as the bathroom, closing the door carefully.

By the time he came out, Giles was in the kitchen. Englishman to the core: in every crisis, make tea.

"No need for us both to get cold; get back into bed, Xander."

Actually that sounded good, and he was embarrassed to think that tea sounded good too. Giles gave him his cup, set the other on top of his closed book, and went to take his own turn in the bathroom before climbing back into bed and giving Xander a hard look. "What was that about? And don't give me the crap about waking up suddenly. You looked as if you were going to pass out."

The inside of his cup was fascinating. "I thought it was a demon or something."

"You haven't freaked at the sound of a demon for years."

He said nothing and they drank their tea in silence until the fact that Giles was _also_ saying nothing became too much. He set his cup down with a bang. "I thought I'd fucked up the wards, OK? I thought I'd... I thought there was a demon inside the boundary because I'd..."

He looked at his hands, which were still trembling, and ran out of words.

"Oh, Xander." The click was Giles setting down his own cup, and then Xander was being gathered into a warm embrace, eased down into the bed and held close. "No. There's nothing wrong with your wards. Hasn't been for months. You set perfectly sound wards."

"When I remember to set them at all." His voice was tight and a little uncertain.

"We're done with that, you know we are. Let it go." Giles' hand worked slowly up and down his back.

"I'm never gonna make a Watcher, it's too... I can't do it."

Giles twisted to look over his shoulder at the alarm clock. "Might I suggest that half past two in the morning is rarely a good time to make career decisions? At half two, I tend to think that _I_ can't be a Watcher because it's too hard. At the moment I'm pleased with how your training is going, and that should be good enough for you."

"I shouldn't still be forgetting basic crap like setting the wards!"

"No," agreed Giles placidly. "You shouldn't. Don't do it again, please."

He pulled free. "I screwed up!"

"I punished you for it."

Well... yeah. He was being a wuss, he knew that. His looked at Giles and his mouth twisted; Giles calmly held out an arm again and Xander allowed himself to tuck back in to the hug. "God, you should just spank me once a week whether I've done anything or not. Make me concentrate, just in case."

Giles tensed oddly. "No. Not even as a joke."

He had to squirm some to be able to look into Giles' face, which was tight and bitter. "Huh?"

"My father did that once."

Oh. Mention of Giles' father rarely came with anything of the good.

"He... there was a section of the Council library... Do you remember the books I didn't permit Willow to read?"

"The ones she read anyway?"

Giles' expression eased a little. "Those ones. The Council had an entire room, the Barnett Room, of books much worse than those. Some of them we needed to read, some of them we needed to _have_ but there were constraints on who could read them, and when, and under what circumstances. They could be dangerous in their own right, not just by way of the information inside them."

"Defence Against The Dark Arts, and Hermione in the Restricted Section?"

Giles gave him a puzzled look, and he shook his head. "Never mind. Go on."

Giles closed his eyes, remembering. "You know I always say that the original book is preferable to having a copy?"

"You're just kinky about the feel of leather bindings."

Giles snorted. "I'll admit to being a hypocrite. I like leather bindings, I like calfskin, deerskin, goat, you can make leather from some fish skins. The time I wanted to use a copy rather than the real book was when the book was bound in human skin. Rather a lot of these were."

"Hu... human skin? Giles, that is way wiggy."

"I agree with you. Particularly when it's recognisable skin."

"Recognisable?"

"A book with a swirled feature on the cover, that had been a navel. A book where the cover showed the imprint of tiny ribs, and where that unevenness was a nipple." He swallowed hard. "That was baby skin, probably – God, I _hope_ – from a stillbirth."

Xander gagged; Giles looked at him and nodded. "And in general these were cases where you _could_ judge a book by its cover."

"Please tell me you don't have any of them."

Giles, of course, answered the part of the question Xander hadn't asked. "I have never, not in the Sunnydale days, not even in my worst demon raising days, had any of them. Anyway, the Council had them, and I had access to the Council library. I was seventeen. You can imagine how much of a, a, not a temptation precisely, but a _fascination_ those books were to a seventeen year old. I knew I didn't want to read them. I understood how dangerous they were. I actually disliked working at that end of the library, and if I had to, I wanted to face the door to the... what did you call it? The Restricted Section? I didn't want to have it behind me where I couldn't see, even if the room was locked."

"Like at the zoo, with the big spiders and snakes? I'm OK with them behind glass, but I have to find them in the tank, I gotta know where they are before I can go past."

Giles nodded. "Yes, like that. And to be fair, not all the books were apocalypses and death-dealing." He cocked an eye at Xander, and grinned; Xander grinned back.

"The Council's porn collection? Sex Magick for Beginners?"

"Not for beginners, that was on the main shelves. They gave us those ones as soon as we started to show signs of puberty. You, you can do some very valuable and powerful spells with a girl's first blood and a boy's first semen."

"OK, totally glad that I've come later – and that was maybe not the best choice of words, or possibly it was – to the Watcher training."

"Indeed. In terms of adolescent humiliation, the Council could take it up to eleven."

"And yay for a Giles-y cultural reference that I totally get! So OK, not Sex Magick for Beginners. What then?"

"Sex Magick, Intermediate, Advanced, and Positively Gymnastic. _That_ was what the teenage trainees wanted to get into the Barnett Room for. Not only were the books there, but there were nice quiet spaces behind the stacks. Not, of course, that you would know anything about taking a girl into a library with dishonourable intentions."

"No, but Cordelia knew enough for both of us."

"That's your story and you're sticking to it? Well, anyway, there was one Saturday I was working in the library. I didn't get a lot by way of free time: my school was run by Watchers for Watchers and many of our subjects weren't listed by the standard exam boards, but there was a certain amount of compulsory syllabus coverage... you can imagine."

"Demon-slaying 101 is all very well, but you gotta have English literature and math?"

"Just so. The languages were OK, and the ancient and mediaeval history, but modern history, geography not involving other dimensions... Even the sport – rugby, cricket and broadsword. Fencing clubs weren't that uncommon in a school that could manage the money but axe-work, disembowelling? It all had to be covered but it was all extra to a standard British public school exam-based education, so most of my weekends were spent in the library. This particular Saturday, I had something tedious to do, I forget what, and when I'd finished it, I noticed that the Restricted Section was open. It wasn't unusual, it just meant somebody was using it; we all tended to leave the door open if we had to go inside." He glanced at Xander. "Remember, I wasn't forbidden to go in. I was forbidden to touch some of the books but the room itself was lawful. I went and stood in the doorway; I was curious about who was using it, but I couldn't see anybody.  I wandered in, not for any particular reason, and, well, I did end up in the sex section. Mostly, I may say, because the creepy books were up at the other end."

"And that's _your_ story..."

"And I'm sticking to it. Xander, I didn't do anything. I stood and looked at the shelves. I read some of the titles. I'll admit, some of them were intriguing and I was intrigued. I _thought_ about it. I thought about taking one and going round behind the last case. I even thought of taking one out to the main library, which would have been a better idea because nobody would have questioned me for a moment. And I thought better of it. I said to myself that these books were in the Barnett Room for a reason, and that if I didn't know what the reason was, then I should keep my hands to myself until I _did_ know. I went back to my school work and when I'd finished it I did some Watcher training work and after that I went home."

He pulled his arm free of Xander and turned onto his back, hands clasped behind his neck, obviously picturing the scene. Xander rolled on his side, his head propped on his hand.

"My father met me at the door, grabbed me by the back of the neck and propelled me into his study. I was so completely taken aback, I didn't know what to say. Next thing I knew the edge of his desk took me across the thighs and I was face down with a cane under my nose."

Xander flinched. "A cane."

Giles glanced sideways at him. "He was old-fashioned in his modes of discipline when I was a child. To be perfectly honest, he didn't have much by way of an alternative. I was a weekly boarder at school and most of my weekends were tied up with Watcher training, so grounding me wasn't much of an option – I rarely went anywhere anyway, there was no television in the house so I couldn't be banned from it, we didn't have the things that your generation did... It wasn't really much of an issue, I was generally a quiet child. Once or twice, adolescence overcame me and I, I, oh, the usual – smart remarks, not tidying up my room when my mother told me. It would cost me three or four sharp whacks. I don't remember anything before I was twelve or so, or after I was about fifteen. I suppose I can't accuse him of cruelty, at least before this occasion."

He looked at the ceiling again, his mouth hard and tight. "I hadn't got a bloody clue what I was supposed to have done; he ordered me – I knew his temper was a bit off but I'd never heard him sound like that – to stay where I was put, and he grabbed my bag out of my hand and tipped everything out of it onto the desk. Fat lot of good it did him, there was nothing more incriminating than a trigonometry textbook and half a bar of Dairy Milk. Then he yanked me up by my collar and dragged my jacket off me, with me yelping and asking him what he wanted, what was wrong. He slammed his hand on the back of my neck to push me down again, and I got that I was in deep disgrace for _something_ , but I was totally devoid of clues as to what it might be. If I squinted I could see him working through the pockets of my jacket. Then he dropped it on the desk, ordered me upright and made me empty my trouser pockets. By this time I was worrying that he'd taken leave of his senses. I produced a set of keys, a handful of small change and a compromising packet of Polo mints. Nothing else. I didn't smoke, I didn't carry a condom because I hadn't worked out any less than totally embarrassing way of buying them.

"Then I got the Third Degree. Why had I been in the Restricted Section? What had I been looking for? What book had I taken? Where was it? The trouble was, I didn't really have any good answers. I'd gone in largely because I'd finished one piece of work and not been ready to start another; I hadn't been looking for anything, I'd just been wandering. If I'd been five years older, I would probably have gone downstairs for a cup of tea and a cigarette, just for the break, you know? But somebody had seen me go in – I hadn't made any secret of it – and had grassed me up to my father. Told him I'd been there. And because I had no real reason to go in, it must be suspicious."

"You couldn't prove you hadn't done anything," suggested Xander sympathetically. "Couldn't prove you hadn't, so you had, even if you didn’t know what. Gotta be guilty of _something._ Story of my life."

Giles nodded. "It took me half an hour to convince him that I hadn't done anything. Even then he wanted to know what I'd been thinking. What had I meant to look at? Why had I not done it? I said I'd thought better of it and got the complete safety lecture, which I'd heard on and off since about my eighth birthday. Those books were terribly dangerous and sex magic was unpredictable and God alone knows what all else. I kept saying that I _knew_ that and I hadn't _done_ anything. Eventually he backed off." His voice went tight. "He said he believed me that I hadn't done anything, but he was going to make damn sure that I remembered that I _wasn't_ to do anything, and he picked up the cane and told me to bend over the desk. I kept saying that I hadn't... Well. Eventually, I did as I was told. He said something like 'Only one, Rupert, but it will serve to remind you to keep your nose out of things that don't concern you.'"

Xander shifted uneasily. "But you hadn't... Only one, well, but if you hadn't..."

Giles nodded again. "I thought that. I thought it was bloody unfair, but only one, and then maybe for the love of God he would stop going on and sodding _on_ about it and I could go." His mouth went hard. "He'd caned me before, and my school used corporal punishment, although rarely. I'd seen somebody caned. It's all in the wrist – hardly more than a flick is enough to, to make you know about it."

Xander nodded. He knew.

"Well, I could see him, reflected in the French windows. He didn't... he took a complete swing, from the shoulder. It was brutal – I thought he'd cut me in half. Xander, I couldn't _breathe_ with the pain, I couldn't get up."

Yeah, Xander knew how that one went too.

"He said, he said... He said that any time it occurred to me to go into the Barnett Room for anything at all that wasn't absolutely Watcher business, I would think of that, I would remember it."

Xander shifted uncomfortably. Giles was breathing hard, his face was tight, his voice deep and dangerous.

"He was bloody right, I did remember it. I _still_ remember it. I got myself up off that desk, I don't know how, and I repacked my bag – I never even looked at him. I put my jacket on. Then... I had to pass him on my way out, and he... he held out his hand to me. He fucking expected me to _shake his hand_. He expected me to _understand_ , to _accept_ that he had hit me for something that I hadn't done, and that he _knew_ I hadn't done. He _knew_ that I'd thought about doing, doing the wrong thing, and that I'd made a good choice and _not done it_. And then he'd hit me anyway, because he thought that rather than reinforcing that I'd done the right thing, he needed to reinforce that the other choice would have been wrong. I just... He'd told me when I was a child that I had to be a Watcher, and he rode me hard after that, I had to be, if I didn't come out in the top two or three of my class he wanted to know why not. Everything I did had to relate to being a Watcher, always. Xander, I'd actually been a bit smug about the Barnett Room thing, I _knew_ that I'd made the right choice, the responsible one, the adult decision. And he had..."

Xander couldn't get any closer. He was pasted over Giles' chest, arms wrapped around him, cheek pushed into the hollow of Giles' shoulder, trying to give him whatever wordless comfort he could for this old injury. "What did you do?" But he had a horrible feeling that he could guess.

"I ignored him. He called after me, but I ignored that too. I went upstairs, dropped my bag, picked up my wallet. I told my mother that I was going out, that I wouldn't be home for dinner, I might be late, I had a key. I wasn't going to have my father call me on rudeness to my mother. I went into London. After about an hour, I found a pub where they weren't careful about checking that their punters weren't under age and I started to teach myself about drinking. Had my first cigarette there too. At closing time, I found a fight.  I went home with the milk. Slept until noon, went out again. That was Sunday. Sunday night I went back to school. The next weekend I called my mother and told her I wasn't taking up my exeat... ah, I wasn't coming home for the weekend, I was staying at school. She wasn't surprised – I think my father had told her what he had done. She never actually told me that she knew, but when... later, she refused to take his side against me. Didn't actively come out for me either but I suppose I could hardly have expected her to. Anyway, I didn't stay at school. I told them I was going home as usual and they didn't check." He snorted. "Nowadays they would. I went off into London again."

He turned his head to look at Xander. "The third time I went, I met a man called Ethan Rayne. Spent an extraordinarily educational evening with him and a girl called Deidre. A year later I bolted from Oxford. And the rest you know."

Yeah, he did.

"So the very idea of, of... what do they call it? Maintenance spankings? Just in case, you said? Xander, I'll spank you because you like it, and because I do, and I'll do it as, as discipline when you let yourself down over your work. But a genuine punishment when you've done nothing to deserve it, just because you _thought_ about doing something wrong and I think that another time you _might_?"

Giles sounded so... so sickened that Xander was quick to reassure. "Not gonna happen, I get it. _So_ not wanting to push any buttons for you that way, Giles." He could hear Giles' heart thumping under his ear; hear his breathing which was way too quick. This was a trigger, and he wasn't pulling it.

"I never forgave him," said Giles, quietly. "That's... that's over thirty years ago and I still haven't forgiven him for the sheer bloody unfairness of it. The bruise lasted me a week, maybe ten days? No longer. The pain was... was excessive even for what he wanted to do, but I got over that. It didn’t actually _hurt_ for more than a day. The injustice... that still hurts now. He never admitted that it wasn't fair. I don't think he ever understood why I resented it. He never admitted that he might have had a hand in me going off the rails, that if he hadn't shown me that doing the right thing _didn't_ actually carry its own reward... He probably sees it as proof that he was right."

Nothing Xander said was gonna help this; all he could think of to do was to press his lips to Giles' shoulder, to be there with him. Maybe to remember occasionally that it wasn't _all_ about Xander?

"I wonder sometimes," added Giles softly, "if he had begun to suspect that I was looking at the boys as well as the girls. A lot of those sex spells are same sex couplings because the power turns inward instead of outward, builds up like a feedback loop. If he thought he could scare me off them... I don't know." He flung an arm up and around Xander. "I don't care."

And Xander didn't believe _that_ for a New York minute, but he wasn't dumb enough to call Giles on it. He lay quietly, thinking, and presently he began to let his fingers wander over Giles' chest. Giles made a little sound of amusement. "Is this a subtle attempt to make me feel better?"

Xander squirmed. "I know I can't, because hello, been punished, it's not about sex, but _you_ can. I could, I could..."

"That was yesterday," pointed out Giles reasonably. "It's today now. It's a bloody stupid time of today, but it's definitely today. Xander, all I wanted you to understand is that, that there's a difference between, between how I deal with you personally and how I do professionally. That's why office relationships are a notoriously bad idea."

"Yeah, I know. Giles can have sex with Xander; Master can have sex with Kay, but Mr Giles doesn't have sex with Harris because Harris is his trainee."

Giles frowned. "You, you actually... do you really think of..."

Xander grinned and nodded. "Mr Giles is the Boss Watcher and he doesn't have sex with his employees. And if Mr Giles isn't here, and Giles _is_ , and Giles is willing, Xander would like to have sex because Harris hasn't got off in most of a week, and it's getting uncomfortable, what with being in bed with you and cuddling and everything." 

Giles stared at him. "Why the hell has Harris... God, you've got me doing it now. Why haven't you got off in a week? At your age that's not, not..."

Xander glared at him. "Because Mr Giles and Harris don't do that."

Giles shrugged. "Not together, because they aren't in a relationship. What either of them does on his own..."

Xander could feel himself making faces like a goldfish, to Giles' obvious amusement.  "Harris hasn't been getting himself off in the shower then?"

He shook his head, speechless. Giles sniggered. "Xander, there's not a definite rule. If you're going with Mr Giles being Harris's employer, then Harris's wanking habits are absolutely none of Mr Giles' business, and providing Harris isn't doing it on works time, so to speak..."

He was indignant. "Have _you_ been getting off in the shower?"

"Naturally. Why would I not?"

"How many times?"

Giles considered. "Three, I think. I'm sorry, love, it never occurred to me that you wouldn't be." It was plainly an effort for him not to laugh. Xander punched him lightly on the chest.

"You owe me three, then. Start now."

"I thought you were going to make me feel better? Start now."

"Can we do both at once?"

It turned out that they could.


	5. Part 2 - Giles 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: Giles thinks, which is a surprise to everybody (/sarcasm). Then there’s something nasty in the wood(shed).

From the window by his desk, he could see Xander and the little surge of happiness, as always, caught him by surprise. When he had come to Scotland, he had almost expected never to be happy again, and yet, and yet... It wasn't perfect. He admitted – to himself, if not to anybody else – that he missed what he thought of as his proper job, but the Council was once again using him as a researcher, and he had given up the more tedious parts of his other work and kept the ones he enjoyed. He still tutored the university hopefuls at the school in the town but he had, without regret, handed the 15-year olds over to a foreign language exchange student.. He had kept the interesting translation contracts and politely excused himself from the tedious ones. Hoofbeat History had asked him to commit to another season, and he had agreed, suggesting to them that he knew someone who might be willing to demonstrate crossbow work. Wesley had emailed him several times, admitting openly that he wanted to pick Giles' brains, and Giles had fought with links and attachments, and answered him. He was busy with more by way of intellectual work, and less by way of physical toil, than he had any right to expect, because his squire shifted the heavy outdoor work, without complaint, and with, it had to be admitted, considerably more skill and ease than Giles himself.

He was eating well – and he could acknowledge, with some amusement, that a considerable part of his misery in the time Before Xander had probably been due to poor nutrition – and sleeping well, possibly as a consequence of the frequent, energetic and enthusiastic sex. It wasn't a surprise that somebody Xander's age wanted regular sex; the only surprise, not that he would say it out loud in Xander's hearing, was that he could keep up.

Well, if he did say it in Xander's hearing, Xander would snigger at the _double entendre_ and then slide an arm around Giles' waist and start an investigation into what precisely Giles _could_ keep up, and what he could do with it for Xander's entertainment.

Xander was happy too. Giles found himself slightly bewildered by that, and completely gratified, because there could be no doubt that a major constituent of Xander's happiness was Giles himself. Xander was enjoying most, if not all, of his training, and was managing the bookwork better than either of them had expected – it had taken Giles only a week to appreciate that nobody had ever _taught_ Xander how to set out a research paper, and that when given a template and a precise set of instructions, he could do it perfectly adequately. His problem, Giles thought fondly, wasn't a lack of ability but merely a lack of confidence. Once he had realised that Giles would neither laugh at his attempts nor be scornful, he had become much more willing to _try_ , and to fail, and be instructed, and try again more successfully. Giles did occasionally have to bite back sharp criticism, but it was less frequent than it had been, and on the occasions on which he felt it justified, Xander was beginning to push back, to demand clarification and help, rather than to turn sulky as had been his wont in Sunnydale.

No, one way or another they were bumbling along together quite happily and even the elephant which was his refusal to speak to Buffy was a much smaller elephant than it had been before. Xander had a mobile phone – Giles refused to have anything to do with it – and occasionally, although not often, he would call Buffy, or Willow would call him. Giles carefully took no interest, but Xander had said once or twice that it was too expensive to do more often. He had made Xander free of his computer at the times he wasn't using it. It would have been churlish not to, particularly given that Xander understood so much more about it than Giles did, and could rescue him when his file vanished, or changed its font to something involving little hieroglyphs in red, or put up incomprehensible warnings. If the cost of that was Xander sending messages almost daily to both Buffy and Willow (and, he sometimes suspected, to Wesley – the thought of Xander and Wesley being friends made his brain hurt), well, he had paid more and received less for other things. It made Xander happy, and it didn't hurt Giles. Xander occasionally mentioned that Buffy or Willow had sent Giles some polite, non-confrontational message, and although he wouldn't go as far as to respond directly, or institute communication of his own, he did occasionally pass comments about demons or the like to Xander that he thought Buffy should hear, and Xander would nod wisely, and, he had no doubt, pass on his advice.

No, the general elephant in the room was a small and well behaved pachyderm. It was his own personal elephant that troubled him, in the shape of the abjuration.

He knew it had to be addressed, because if he concentrated, he could feel it, like an old and not fully healed injury. It didn't work the way it should, and he didn't know how he knew that, nor what, if anything, he ought to do about it. He ought not to be able to feel Buffy _at all_ ; in the period after he had performed the ritual, his lack of awareness of his Slayer had been a constant griping pain, and it had taken the best part of three months to die back to a slow ache that he could ignore, and as long again to disappear completely. It was After Xander – the use of Before Xander and After Xander was a convenient shorthand for the totally surprising turn his life had taken – that he had begun to be aware of... of an awareness, and that was not one of his more coherent sentences. He had ignored it, denied it and finally, snarling, researched it, because he had known from the very beginning what it reminded him of. His first meeting with Buffy had been followed by about six weeks of growing sensitivity, until he had been fully in tune with his Slayer, conscious of her if he stopped what he was doing, to _listen_ which was not quite the right word, to _feel_ except that it wasn't quite that either. The Watcher-Slayer link was well documented, although it didn't always form, and when it did, the strength of it was variable. His had, he thought, been stronger than most, and the abjuration had broken it with a physical shock that had vibrated through him for a long time. It _had_ broken it, though, so he ought not to be able to feel Buffy at all any more.

He could, though. Not always, not strongly, but sometimes, he could. He had thought at first that he was imagining it. Had tried to convince himself that he was imagining it. Then he had woken at four o'clock one morning knowing that Buffy was in danger, and had fallen out of bed scrabbling for a weapon. Xander, jerked awake by Giles fighting free of the bed covers, had heard him babbling and panicking and had called Buffy, leaving a 'what is it? what's happening? Giles is freaking out' message on her phone. Ten minutes later she had called back. He thought she must have asked how he had known, because Xander had looked sideways at him, and then taken the call into the other room, while Giles concentrated on not having a heart attack, but when he came back, he had said that Buffy had been hyper, that something had obviously been going down in a big way, but that nobody was hurt. It had been obvious that Buffy's conversation had been 'tell Giles this, tell Giles that' and he had struggled not to take the phone from Xander and to demand to know how it worked.

He knew that he wasn't being totally reasonable.

It occurred to him, more than once, that possibly the abjuration only worked as long as they both – or rather, either of them – wanted it to work.

He couldn't refuse to think about it; facts had got to be faced. He still wasn't ready to go back, and he wasn't certain that he ever would be; he was damn certain that the terms on which he might consider going back were not the same as the ones on which he was originally her Watcher. Nonetheless, he was beginning to think that there might be some possible arrangement once Xander was more than half trained, along the lines of his original idea of a hands on fighting junior and a researching senior.

He looked back out at Xander, who seemed to feel Giles' eyes on him; he looked over his shoulder and smiled. That was good. Xander's instincts for when he was being watched were picking up. In fact he was making good progress generally, and Giles was pleased; the research end of things was still a problem, but Xander tried to do it properly, and Giles tried not to push too hard with it, to the point at which Xander would be completely put off. No, everything was ticking along very nicely, he thought. Outside, Xander's head came up; even from the house, Giles could see that he looked startled, and he was turning slowly, inspecting the tree-line on the other side of the road.

Giles wondered what he had seen.

He was curious enough to go to the door; Xander was backing up, but now he had stopped staring at the trees and had his head cocked to one side, as if listening.

"Something wrong?"

"There's something out there, I can feel it."

Giles allowed his own Watcher sense to flow across the landscape. Xander cast him an awkward glance. "I don't feel anything."

"Oh. I thought... Oh. Guess I'm wrong then."

Only... only Giles had just been thinking about how Xander's senses and awareness had improved. "I don't know," he said noncommittally. "Can you still feel it?"

Xander looked blank as he concentrated, and then his shoulders slumped. "Nothing."

"What did you think it was?"

Xander shook his head. "Dunno. Just something... something that didn't mean... This sounds dumb but something that didn't mean me any good."

Giles frowned. "Something malevolent?"

Xander shifted uncomfortably. "Not... exactly. More like, I dunno, not like Angelus but maybe like Spike? But if you can't feel anything..."

"If it was something that bore you ill-will, but didn't to me, I wouldn't necessarily feel it," he pointed out crisply. "Keep your guard up. If you're imagining things, the practice will do you good. If you're not..."

"The real thing will do me good. Yeah, got it."

He nodded, scanned the area himself once more, and went back towards the house. The fact that he felt nothing... No, his instincts pinged but he couldn't say why. If there was something... even something spiteful, rather than actively evil, it was unlikely to be aimed at Xander rather than at Giles himself, so the fact that Giles couldn't feel anything ought to be reassuring. If it wasn't... then perhaps he was feeling something and it was simply that for once, Xander was more finely attuned than Giles. Improbable but not impossible.

He allowed himself to go back to work, but he kept one small segment of his awareness on the yard and the outbuildings. The flicker of the wards might have escaped him at another time – it was only when he expected trouble that the wards were fully charged during daylight hours, but there was a trace weave at all times and something, something that as Xander said intended no good to one of them, had just plucked at a thread. He stopped to grab a crossbow and a knife from the umbrella stand by the front door, and picked his way cautiously along the wall. It was the middle of the bloody morning, so anything that threatened them... It might, of course, simply be some unexpected but not dangerous creature. He had become aware of the selkies in the loch first when one of them had come up the beach and triggered his wards; there were too few habitations around for a brownie to be likely, although it wasn't impossible. It might even be an animal, something that had been touched by the Fae.

But there were voices in the... yes, in the stable. Xander and somebody or something, in the loosebox. He worked himself even closer to the whitewashed wall, and eased along it slowly, watching where he put his feet and avoiding anything that might make a noise.

The voice was unmistakeable.

Chad.

The calmer, more sensible Watcher wrapped a hand around Ripper's throat and stopped him taking off with a roar. Chad was inside Ivo's loosebox, with Xander, and Giles had promised himself a long time previously that at the first opportunity, he was going to hurt Chad. Hurt him a lot. When he had left America he had put that idea away from him, because Xander was no longer any of his concern, but now he found that yes, he did remember that 'hurt Chad' was still unticked on his Things To Do Marked Urgent list, and if the Watcher thought it was a bad idea, the Watcher could just fuck off because Ripper... no, actually, the Watcher thought it was a good idea too, because slavers were not something that a decent man would permit in his neighbourhood. The Watcher simply wanted Ripper to remember that there were other means of fighting than just hurling himself into the fray – and that he had spent several months teaching them to Xander.

A movement told him that Xander was remembering everything that he had been taught. He couldn't see where Chad was – what the hell was the man, the demon, the half-demon, the little shit doing in Scotland anyway, and how had he traced them? – but Xander was circling the box (ah, there was Chad, following him), keeping the horse between himself and his opponent, back to the wall, eyes intent.

There was a low murmur, and a laugh, the pair circled again the other way, and he heard Ivo snort and stamp uneasily.

"Wasting your time, sweetheart. Might as well make it easy for yourself, because you're all out of choices. Now we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way."

Sodding git, not even any originality in his threats, but Giles couldn't fling himself into the loosebox until he knew where Chad was, and where Xander was and where Ivo was, come to that. He was reasonably certain that Xander was unarmed but he couldn't guess about Chad.

"No, I don't think we can." Xander didn't even sound breathless. "And I think I still have choices, and my choices don't include you."

"Babe, I'm sorry but you don't. Your Watcher may not have told you, but the binding is permanent. Can't be broken. You're property, Xander, and when I got a trace of you, when your name was mentioned by some clapped out member of the Watchers' Council grumbling about old Giles letting the side down, I asked some questions. I knew you were back, of course; I knew he'd bought you but it wasn't hard to find that he didn't know what he was doing. He doesn't own you, does he? So you're a stray, a runaway, Xander, and I've come to put a collar back on you and take you home. You're not registered as belonging to him, so there's not a damn thing he can do if I want to take you. Now I'm not expecting you to like it, but you can come with your dignity intact, or you can come because I muzzle you."

"Not coming at all," denied Xander, but Chad laughed again.

"Please yourself, sweetheart. _Angouval!_ "

It took him a split second to recognise Xander's Bond-Word: he had seen it written down, but never heard it spoken and he suddenly realised that he had no idea at all whether or not it would still have an effect. He rounded the stable door in time to see Xander apparently frozen in shock (fuck, the word did still work!) and Chad, smiling triumphantly, dragging at his wrist. He wasn't sure which of them was more surprised when Xander shook his head hard, as if bewildered, and then swung a solid punch into Chad's midriff.

Unfuck, the word didn't work. Good. In that case, it would come to a straightforward fight.

Ripper _liked_ fights.


	6. Part 2 - Giles 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: This is a Giles who is not entirely reasonable, and just the tiniest bit sadistically violent.

It seemed Chad hadn't been expecting Ripper – well, probably hadn't been expecting Giles and didn't even _know_ about Ripper. He certainly seemed surprised firstly when an angry Watcher flung himself into the stable, and secondly when the aforementioned angry Watcher hit him expertly three times, and then tripped him, headbutted him, and stamped on his knee as he fell. He recovered quickly though, and of course the bloody Gorch – was he wholly Gorch or half-Gorch? Giles couldn't remember – had demon speed and strength on his side. Nonetheless, two to one was a big help; the fight turned into an ungainly brawl, but Giles would be gratified, when he had a moment to think at all, to find that he and Xander were working much more as a team than he would have expected given the short period of Xander's Watcher training. Of course, they had been on the same side for a long time, and Scooby training, even if not very formal, plainly had something to recommend it.

Ivo didn't seem to like it much, though, and there was no denying that a loosebox did leave them short of space for a really good donnybrook. Both Xander and Giles were trying to avoid the horse; Chad did too, but in his case it seemed to be less a case of not wanting to harm Ivo and more a matter of just finding that the horse was in the way. The half door was swinging randomly in the wind, banging shut every twenty seconds until Xander threw Chad against it and all three of them fell out through the gap into the yard, scrapping and snarling like dogs. Chad got a fist into Giles' midriff; Giles reeled backwards into the wall, and came up winded and half stunned, his knees suddenly unwilling to support him. It didn't help when Ivo, frightened by the uproar, bolted from the box, knocking Giles sideways as he tried to struggle to his feet. The horse plainly didn't understand or like the situation; he hovered five feet away, snorting, his ears pinned nervously back. Xander, suddenly, was losing, to Giles' horror, but he couldn't quite make it to his feet; when Chad produced a knife, he was still on his knees.

Afterwards, he wasn't sure what had possessed him, except the conviction that in a genuine crisis, almost _anything_ could be a weapon. He hadn't needed the word of command for a year, relying entirely on his hand and leg; still, it was gratifying to see that when he shouted – and he had _never_ shouted at Ivo – the horse obeyed him. It wasn't a good _capriole_ : Ivo hadn't been expecting it, and attempted it clumsily from a poor stance, but he did both leap and kick, hitting Chad squarely on the arse and knocking him and Xander down. Xander managed to roll away, Ivo spun in, snorting, and Giles yelled again. The _levade_ was no more polished than the _capriole_ had been, because Ivo wasn't properly balanced, but from a fighter's point of view that was all the better: the horse threw out a foreleg and knocked Chad down. Then, because he knew what was expected of the command, he tried again, with the movement turning into something between a _mezair_ and a _courbette_.

It must have been terrifying for Chad, they agreed later, to see a rearing horse striking at him, apparently deliberately. He tried to duck and roll, but chose the wrong direction, into the horse's legs, and Ivo trod on him, probably by accident, before taking fright and kicking him twice more on purpose.

That was all Giles needed. He was there, wobbly knees or not, hands around Chad's throat, dragging him up far enough to get the leverage to knock his head against the wall. There was a sudden startling silence.

"Xander? Bring me a couple of lead ropes. And then put the horse away and shut the door."

One rope went around Chad's wrists, pinning them behind him, perhaps rather too tightly. Giles found that care for Chad's circulation didn't trouble him much. The second rope, run through its own carabiner clip, settled under the demon's chin and then a little brute force took him to the mounting block. By the time his eyes opened, the end of the rope was neatly knotted through the end of the roof support, and Giles could back away and catch his breath.

He was _so_ (as Xander would express it) right to be training a junior Watcher to do the heavy lifting: he was _way_ (also as Xander would say) too old to do this himself. He flexed various muscles carefully and took stock of his body. His stomach ached; he had banged his head, fortunately not hard enough to qualify for his usual concussion; somebody had stood on his foot; his knuckles hurt, as did one shoulder and the opposite elbow. He should have known better. He _did_ know better: he had learned in street brawls in some of the rougher areas of London and Essex some thirty years before, that the smart fighter hit the _soft_ parts of his opponent with his fist, and the _hard_ parts with a large heavy weapon.

Well, he supposed a Friesian horse and a whitewashed wall probably counted as large heavy weapons. Chad looked no better than Giles felt himself: he was marked, and Giles took some smug satisfaction in identifying several bruises that he had personally put on the demon, and allocating the rest evenly between Xander and Ivo. He leaned against the wall, trying to look relaxed and threatening, rather than as if he had to lean on _something_ or fall down.

"I won't ask why you're here: I think I got that bit. You're here because you believed that you could take Xander again. That," and he allowed Ripper to smile at Chad, who flinched, "was, fairly obviously, a mistake. I'm interested in the _extent_ of your mistake. Did you come for him deliberately, or is it just a nasty coincidence that you're in Scotland?"

Chad curled his lip and didn't answer; Giles gave him a moment, and then straightened, disguising the effort it required, and without further warning, drove his fist hard into Chad's body. The demon tried to duck away, but the rope around his throat tightened, and with his arms fastened behind him, he danced for a desperate moment before recovering his balance on top of the mounting block. Giles took a careful step backward.

"Did you come for him deliberately?"

A single beat, and he threw the punch again. This time, when Chad twisted, Giles, with careful control, put a hand on his chest and kept him off balance, supported by the rope.

"Allow me to point out that if you fall from that block – or if I take it away from underneath you – the drop will not be sufficient to break your neck and kill you cleanly. You will strangle, slowly – and if I keep lifting you and letting you fall, you might strangle very slowly indeed. _Very_ slowly indeed. Did you come for him deliberately?"

Chad coughed and nodded frantically. Giles tugged at his shirt until he achieved the vertical again.

"There. That wasn't so hard, was it? _Why_ did you come for him? I mean, obviously for profit, but is it really so rewarding to come all this way for Xander rather than to look for somebody new?"

He gave Chad five seconds and then pushed again. This time he waited a little longer before repeating his question. The answer was heartfelt, if incomprehensible, and he pulled the demon upright and allowed him to breathe.

"Again, please. Explain."

Chad wheezed. "Heard he changed hands to a human. Guessed it was probably you. Looked up the record."

"Do go on," encouraged Giles courteously. Chad shot him a look of hatred.

"Record didn't list you as owner."

Giles smiled, slowly. "No, it wouldn't," he agreed.

"Wasn't any owner registered, so I could take him."

Giles tipped his head a fraction and looked politely enquiring. "Why would you think that?"

Chad managed a slightly contemptuous expression, only marginally spoiled by his bound hands and bruises. "Because it isn't possible to break the binding. He was properly bound, so he's a chattel."

Giles was aware of Xander emerging from the stable behind him and coming to stand at his shoulder. This, though, was the New Improved Trainee Watcher Xander; he stood, silently, patiently, and waited. The old Xander would have hurled himself in with questions and accusations. Giles smiled, evilly.

"It isn't possible for _you_ to break the binding."

Chad shook his head, looking faintly startled. "The bindings are permanent. There's no way to break them."

Giles' smirk never faltered. "And yet, you used Xander's Bond-Word, and it didn't work. You claimed him under the binding, and somehow he is not subject to you." He leaned close enough that Chad had to squint to keep him in focus. " _You underestimated me._ I broke that binding, Chad. It wasn't even difficult." And please, please let Xander go on holding his tongue. Let the word get back to Coblan, and around the slavers and their purchasers, firstly that the bindings could be broken and that they didn't understand how, because that would bugger up the market more effectively than almost anything else, and secondly that Rupert Giles was a very much more powerful mage than anybody had previously understood, rather than simply the sort of researcher who could think, in the common parlance, outside the box.

Xander was silent, which was good. He would have to silence Buffy and Willow, oh yes, and Wesley. Possibly Angel. The _means_ by which he had freed Xander had either to be kept secret as long as possible, to cause doubt and a failure of market confidence in the slave trade, or thrown totally into the public domain in the hope of causing trouble before the slavers could think of a way around it.

Chad's expression was morphing from fear and hatred to incomprehension. "It _can't_ be broken!"

"I broke it." It was said flatly. "I have both the knowledge and the power. You might take Xander by force..."

"And how's that working for you?" put in Xander himself. Well, it was probably too much to hope that he would have held his tongue all the way to the end.

"But you will not take him by rights of ownership. Now, this is very fascinating, I don't doubt," and he wanted Chad thinking about something else, because the less Chad thought about the _how_ the better pleased Giles would be, "but I'm interested in the _why_. Why did you come back specifically for him?"

Chad was beginning to show a grudging, nervous respect. "I had a buyer. It's... it _should_ be easier to pick up a second hand body than to go through it all again, gaining their trust, doing the spells... Quicker. Worth a couple of air fares to save the month of getting them to come to my hand."

Xander quivered with indignation. "Second hand?"

Giles bit back a totally inappropriate giggle. "Save on the training as well; I see." He frowned theatrically. "I don't want to go around this with you again. I'm not prepared to watch for you all my life, to have to be on my guard against some nasty little spiv with no morals." He looked at Xander. "You aren't at risk any more, but other people are. What do you want me to do with him?" He set a foot ostentatiously against the edge of the mounting block and pushed just enough to make it shift, and for Chad to wobble and fidget nervously. "Do you want him dead, Xander? Say the word, and I'll kill him."

The sound that broke from Chad was sheer terror; Giles smiled gently at him. "Because I can, can't I, Chad? I'm not at all what you thought I was. I'm the man who traced Xander across I don't know how many dimensions. I'm the man who went for him, retrieved him, _freed_ him. You thought I couldn't do any of those things, and you were wrong. I'm much stronger than you realised. Much more powerful. I'm quite well aware that when you took Xander, one of his selling points was that he was part of the Slayer's group, part of the Watcher's group, and you didn't quite understand what that meant, did you?" He kicked the mounting block again, and Chad rocked. "I'm not the old tired researcher who can be insulted with impunity. It might serve my purpose now and then to appear that way, but actually, Chad, actually..." He let his voice die away; there were tears sliding down Chad's cheeks, whether fear or physical reaction to the choking rope he couldn't tell and didn't care. He took a careful breath. It was _hard_ , balancing up the authority of Giles the Watcher, and Ripper’s dangerous lack of control, but it was that combination that would see Chad off. He had a sudden flash of an idea, and grabbed at it.

"Actually, Chad, _I'm_ in charge here. If Xander wants you dead, then the only decision is how I'm going to kill you. How I'll do it, not him. I'll give him your life if he wants it, but it's _my_ gift. The only reason you're still alive _now_ is that I haven't cared enough to bother about you." A little misdirection; he needed Chad looking at Xander. "Your life is _mine_. If you want to be allowed to keep it, I suggest you start begging Xander for it, because if he says the word, I'll have it from you. Do you understand that?"

Chad made a garbled sound; Giles hooked a hand over the rope and tugged once. "I _said_ , do you understand? Who does your life belong to?"

"You!" It was a broken sob, and Giles smiled coldly. "Then if you want mercy, ask Xander for it. He's your only hope: my personal inclination is to kill you. Slowly." He slapped Chad briskly across the jaw. "Beg."

"Xander, I... _Xander_! Don't let him... He'll kill me, Xander. And I don't, I didn't..."

"You did," said Xander coldly. "You took me, you fooled me, you sold me. You didn't care what happened to me. You didn't care that they hurt me, they scared me, they might have killed me. You didn't care that you turned my life upside down. You wouldn't have cared if I died. And then you came back to _have another go_. I wasn't ever anything to you, was I, except merchandise?"

"Xander, he'll kill me!"

Xander's expression hardened until Giles could recognise himself in it; he had taught Xander more than he perhaps expected. "Giles, if we don't kill him, what do we do? He's a risk. Is there any alternative to killing him? I guess I don't really want him dead if there's anything else, but _is_ there anything else? If we can't make him safe, not just for me, but safe for everybody else, then he'll have to be killed."

Chad cried out; Giles spoke over him. "I can make him safe."

Xander turned his back on Chad, and his eyes searched Giles' face urgently; Giles wasn't certain what he was looking for, but he hoped desperately that for all Xander's bitterness, the basic trust in Giles himself would suffice. "Really safe?"

"You will be safe. I will be safe. People generally will be safe. Chad," and he allowed the Ripper grin to break free again, "will not be safe. Alive, but not safe."

Xander looked from Giles to Chad and back. "Do that."     


	7. Part 2 - Giles 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: Characters from _The Water Babies_. Oh, and some sex. Not with _The Water Babies_.

He smiled coldly at Chad. "Xander's softer than I am, but I did say that if he wanted you alive I would leave you alive, didn't I? You might not think it the better deal." He glanced at Xander. "I need you to fetch... two clean handkerchiefs, and the red notebook from the third shelf. And your phone, please."

Xander looked puzzled, but he set off for the house; Giles turned back to Chad. "Now I've probably covered this adequately already," he said conversationally, "but I confess that I'm not sure how a pure physical barney involving another person would come into things, so we'll not take any chances." He stepped up onto the first tread of the mounting block and lightly backhanded Chad's face again, before backing away again placidly. "That should do it."

Xander trotted back with his hands full; Giles took one of the folded handkerchiefs, shook it out and tied it into a loose ball. The second was wrapped around it and then he climbed onto the block with Chad, and without warning, spread his hand over the demon's nose. Chad jerked away, but Giles held him until he gasped, and then forced the cloth into his mouth, knotting the ends behind his head.

"I don't want him arguing," he explained helpfully to Xander. "The book?"

Chad recognised the spell on the fourth word; Xander didn't pick it up until the third sentence, by which time his ex-lover was struggling hard against the gag and the noose, making desperate sounds of frantic objection, eyes wide and panicked. Giles finished the last two lines, and closed the book calmly. "So that should cover the first part. Even ignoring the fight, I punched you twice and slapped you twice. The thing about it requiring visible marks, that's just tradition, it’s not actually true; I discovered as much during my research. You've already proclaimed in front of Xander, who is a credible witness, that your life belongs to me, so all that's necessary now is that I should declare that I hereby take you within my household."

Chad was sobbing again, dragging for breath between the gag and the noose. Giles glanced at Xander. "Can you hold him still? I need to do his Bond-Word." He looked back at Chad. "I suppose you wouldn't be interested in English classic novels of the nineteenth century, would you? And of course, _The Water-Babies_ is rather out of favour nowadays because of some of its attitudes to race and religion. Nonetheless, it did introduce us to those important characters, Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid." His voice hardened. "You're about to meet that latter." 

It took only few minutes to set the Bond-Word; afterwards he loosened the gag, without totally removing it – he didn't want Chad to suffocate, he supposed, just to suffer. The Gorch was snivelling softly, and Giles felt a burn of satisfaction over his exhaustion. He turned to Xander. "Call Willow. I need to speak to her."

Xander frowned. "It'll be three in the morning there," he observed uncritically, but he pulled the phone from his pocket. They both jumped when it rang before he could touch the keys, and Xander squinted. "Buffy," he said uncertainly, but Giles held out his hand.

"How do I...?"

"The green button."

He pressed it and lifted the phone to his ear; already he could hear Buffy's panicked tones.

"...can tell that there's something wrong and I wanna know what it is! Xander, what's _happening_?"

He swallowed. "This is Giles."

Her silence echoed. Then she said cautiously, "Are you OK, Giles? I can feel something... I was... I woke up, and I knew you were fighting, and then it went quiet again, and I've like felt that before when you've been fighting, but this was different, I waited because I didn't know what it was, but I can still feel something and..."

"Breathe, Buffy."

"Giles, are you hurt? Because I can feel it, like something vibrating."

"Can you? That's curious."

" _Giles_! Are you hurt? Or is Xander?"

 Oh... he had been assuming that when she said 'you' she meant... well, at best she meant Xander-and-Giles in the plural, and most likely she meant Xander, but it seemed that she meant Giles. "We are not hurt. Well, cuts and bruises. Nothing worse."

"No concussion?" she demanded fiercely. "Giles, what are you _doing_? You can't be on patrol, it must be, Willow says it's the middle of the day there. What are you fighting in the middle of the day?"

"A Gorch slaver," he said evenly, and suddenly remembered the snappy wrist action that would remove a telephone receiver from his ear when Buffy hit that particular top note.

" _Chad_?"

"In person."

_"Willow! Willow, start the witchy-engine! We need you to do the teleportation thing..."_

"Buffy." He put as much authority as he could into the one word; her shriek broke off.

"Yes, Giles?" It was tentative.

"You are not to come here. I have everything under control. Xander is perfectly safe from Chad."

She was silent for a moment. "Are you safe too?" Her voice quivered, and he found his own had reverted to Reassuring-Librarian-Type.

"I'm quite safe. The person who isn't safe is Chad. Chad currently belongs to me. I need you to tell Willow, and then to tell everybody else you can think of. Wesley. Angel. This is to be gossip in every demon bar on the continent within twenty-four hours, and in every demon bar across the world within a week."

"Chad belongs to you." She sounded stunned.

"For the next ten minutes. After that, Chad is, Chad will belong to anybody who wants him. Tell the demon world that. And his Bond-Word," he smiled evilly at the terrified and struggling Gorch, "is my profession. My calling. I don't want to say it aloud now, he needs to be alert when he leaves here."

"'Watcher'," said Buffy in a small voice.

"Tell them that too."

"Giles, that's... It’s evil. It's brilliant, but it's..."

"The alternative is to kill him. That, that would probably be kinder." He showed his teeth again. "I don't feel kind. Let's say it's pragmatic. Or is it too cruel for you?" He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it seemed that it was not only Xander and Giles himself who had changed. Buffy’s knowledge of black and white included more greys these days.

"With what he did to Xander? There's no such thing. I'm just... I shouldn't be surprised that you can do it, should I?"

They were going places he didn't want to revisit; he wasn't sure that she did.

"Will you do it? Put, put the word out?"

"Oh _yes_ ," she agreed viciously.

"Good. Then I need to finish this. Goodbye, Buffy." He worked out for himself that the red button cut the call; he rather thought that Buffy was still talking when he did. The phone went back to Xander, who looked stunned; Giles picked up the knife that had been knocked out of his hand at some point in the fight, and approached Chad.

"Now. You. I did say that marks weren't _necessary_ , didn't I? But they might be _satisfying_." He saw, with approval, that Chad was shuddering with fear. "Four marks to send you from my household, Chad. Where shall I put them?" He traced the tip of the knife very lightly across the demon's face, resting it beneath his eye. Noose or no noose, Chad was straining away from him. He exerted the slightest imaginable pressure, enough to scratch the skin without drawing blood. "One." The blade tickled down to Chad's lip, already bruised and swollen, and a faint red line showed. "Two. I am not a safe man, Chad. I hope you know that. You will not come back here." The knife slipped lower, over Chad's shoulder, and Giles smiled, without warmth, before flicking his wrist until the cloth of the shirt in front of him parted. Chad whimpered, as Giles traced the very edge of his areola, and tiny beads of blood formed around his nipple. "Three."

He took his time drawing the knife lower; a sharp movement snapped the button of Chad's jeans away into the dirt. Unnecessary grandstanding, but when he pressed the flat of the blade against Chad's fabric covered groin, he was unsurprised by the spreading stain. "I could, Chad. I could." He pressed the knife quickly and shallowly into Chad's thigh. "But I won't. Four. And hereby I send you from my household. You have probably about eighteen hours to try to escape." He pulled the gag free, and spun the limp body to release the lead ropes from hands and throat; Chad fell awkwardly from the mounting block and Giles loomed over him. "I suggest you _run_." 

When they could no longer hear any sound of Chad, Giles allowed himself to drop onto the mounting block; a moment later Xander sat heavily on the step and leaned against his legs. After a minute or so, Xander's voice came softly. "If I had said yes, would you have killed him?"

"You wouldn’t have said yes."

Xander trembled against his thigh. "I wanted to."

Giles was silent, waiting. Xander's head moved. "But would you?"

"It's the wrong question. You, you were never going to ask me to."

"Do you know that you didn't stammer at all while it was all going down? You started again when you were speaking to Buffy. Giles, if I had said yes..."

"You didn't. You wouldn't. I knew you wouldn't. Xander, you must know that I would be capable of killing him. Equally, you, you must know that if you had wanted him dead – and that, that's your own concern – you are perfectly capable of killing him yourself. You know how to kill. Circumstances and I together have taught you. The, the morality of that is something you must sort in your own head."

Xander shifted uncomfortably. "I guess."

"But I knew – I _knew_ , Xander – that you would not, would not dump that moral choice on me. You simply would not ask that. On the other hand, Chad would, I think, believe that you could not kill him yourself, but he would believe in my capability. Because that capability, I do have." 

Xander nodded, thoughtfully, his face still turned away; Giles waited for a moment. "If you want to know if I would have done it, not, not at your demand but for my own sake, you should ask."

Xander looked up, his face weary. "Don't need to: known you too long. Giles, we all knew that you, um, that you would die for Buffy. We got that early on. Angelus, if nothing else. It took us a while longer to realise that you would _kill_ for Buffy."

Giles looked at him for a long breath. He didn't know – he wasn't going to ask – whether Xander thought that Giles would kill for him personally, rather than for Buffy or for what they insisted on calling the Slayage (and he had no better word for it, however much he deprecated theirs). He didn't, he found, know himself if he would kill for Xander. He didn't know why he had suggested that Xander should ask him. He couldn't have answered.

Xander shivered, and rubbed his face; Giles leaned over against his shoulder. The adrenaline high was leaving him, and he thought Xander was probably the same. It was an effort to get to his feet and to offer Xander his hand. He must look in on the horse, he thought muzzily. “Are, are you all right? Not hurt?” Stupid question. They were both hurt, but he hoped Xander knew what he meant. “He didn't, he didn’t do anything... Did he hurt you?”

"He kissed me! The bastard kissed me. Caught me by surprise, walked in and kissed me like we hadn't seen each other in months, like we were best buds still!" Xander's voice was indignant, and he scrubbed at his face; Giles felt the cold rush of rage and denial again. No! He dragged at Xander's wrist, having just enough sense to get them both out of sight. Already this morning they had risked discovery, what with a fight and a spell and all the rest of it, out in the open. His luck must be due to run out any minute, and to have a caller come upon them... he shoved open the door to the feed room and propelled Xander inside.

"Giles, what..."

Xander's question was cut off by Giles' mouth. And then by Giles body, and Giles' hands, shoving him back towards the bale of feed, tearing at his clothing. Not that Xander seemed to be objecting – it took him only a second or two to get the idea, and to pull and push in his turn. Giles tore free and glared at Xander. "He can't have you," he asserted aggressively, knowing how stupid it sounded. "You're _mine_."

"Don't want him," Xander assured his collar bone, equally stupidly.

"He _kissed_ you." Giles knew his voice was deepening with indignation and offence.

"Didn't want him to." Xander's voice, on the other hand, rose to a squeak as Giles plunged a hand into his loosened jeans. "Didn't – ah! – let him. Not on purpose."

"Should damn well hope not," growled Giles, biting at his throat. "If I thought you'd let him you wouldn't sit down for a week."

Xander whimpered but it plainly wasn't fear. "Wouldn't let him. Wouldn't. Oh God, Giles, yes, do that, do it..." His fingers scrabbled at Giles' fly, a cool palm closing around Giles' heated flesh. Giles spared his right hand to pull at Xander's shirt, baring his chest, pushing him down onto a pile of feed sacks and unused turnout rugs, working him hard and fast until Xander was thrusting up at him, losing his grip on Giles and falling back helplessly to come with a howl.

Giles hadn't finished: he let go of Xander and reached for his own cock, hard and leaking, and braced himself above Xander's chest. "I'm not," he gasped viciously, "not having you _tainted_ with his touch, d'you hear me?"

Xander, still panting, nodded, eyes wide.

"You're _mine_!" snarled Giles, and came, uncontrollably, collapsing on Xander as his knees finally announced that he was too old for this sort of thing. They lay uncomfortably entangled, Xander with one foot hooked over Giles’ leg and Giles wondering vaguely about aneurysms, until the rug beneath them began to slide, threatening to deposit them both on the floor. Giles disentangled his ankle from Xander's knee, and considered the possibility of standing up. It didn't seem likely.

"Ew," said Xander, examining his stomach and chest. "Is there anything in here..."

Giles found a handkerchief, possibly one of the ones he had used in Chad's mouth – and then his eyes narrowed. He leaned forward, and carefully wiped some, but not all of the mess away. The he set his hand squarely on Xander's belly and swept upward over his chest. Xander squeaked with surprise.

"Leave it," ordered Giles, hoarsely. "You'll leave it until I tell you that you can wash it off. You're mine, not his." He was faintly amazed at himself, at his possessiveness, but Xander's eyes were wide and his mouth rounded with surprise, and... arousal? Again? Already? "If you're going to be marked by anybody," he said, deliberately testing, "it'll be by me."

Xander shuddered.


	8. Part 3 - Giles 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: This is the BDSM section; it’s three chapters long and takes us all the way to the end. If BDSM gives you the yips, don’t read it; you won’t miss anything by way of Plot. Nothing bad in this specific chapter, though.

He wasn't quite certain what would be the best thing to do next; one instinct suggested taking Xander and going back to bed for a couple of hours. He was weary to his core, and he rather thought that Xander probably was too. On the other hand, he was still vibrating with the thrill of the fight and... and the rest; he didn't think that he would be able to relax. His desk was covered in paperwork, but he knew from bitter experience that anything he did in this frame of mind would simply need to be done _right_ later.

Xander, looking much the way that Giles felt, muttered something about work and wandered off; a minute or two later, Giles found him staring down a drain.

"Problem?"

"Huh? Oh... no. I was... I meant to scrape some of the crap out of this today. It wasn't running right when it rained."

He peered down, into what did indeed seem to be mostly mud and dead leaves. "Is there any way to get that stuff out other than by lying on the ground and scrabbling? You won't fit a spade down there."

Xander made a face. "I can't think of one." He stared moodily into the hole. Giles sighed.

"I'll get a plastic sack. I don't see why you should have to do it all yourself." Actually, he thought they probably both needed something simple, not mentally taxing, to do; drain clearing was as good as anything. It was harder, physically, than he would have liked but between them, they did manage it. Afterwards he looked at his watch.

"If you clear up here, I'll go and have a wash and make us something for lunch. I'll be out of the bathroom by the time you come in." He found as he sliced bread that he was _ravenous_ ; Xander, on the other hand picked nervously at his meal and shook his head any time Giles offered him more. He was silent, and rather white, although he did seem better once he had eaten.

"I'll put this away. I want you to go and saddle Ivo, please." It wasn't an unusual thing for him to say, but while he had been eating, he'd also been making plans. The normal routine of the day was shot; no point in trying to retrieve it. He would retrieve things for Xander instead.

He took Xander's jacket as well as his own, and handed it over when he accepted Ivo's bridle. Xander looked surprised, but he pulled it on, obviously thinking that Giles had another outdoor task for him. Giles handed over his riding hat.

"Put that on. It's not ideal, you ought to have your own, but it will do until we can get into town." There was still a lead rope curling over a corner of the mounting block; he picked it up and clipped it to the cavesson noseband, and then turned back to Xander, who was looking bewildered. "Come on, any time today."

"Huh?"

"You're not riding without a hat. Put it on."

"Giles, I don't know how to ride a horse. I'd never even touched a horse before I met Ivo."

He allowed himself to roll his eyes. "I know that." He took the hat back, and fitted it onto Xander's head, easing the chin strap tighter, and then ran a hand inside Ivo's girth and pulled the stirrups down. "All right, up the block. Now, both reins in the left hand. A bit shorter so he doesn't get the idea that he can just walk off; get a handful of mane as well. Put your right hand over here. Left foot in the stirrup; face square on to him, or even a little towards his tail, not his nose. You're going to push off the block, _without_ allowing yourself to boot him in the ribs, swing your right leg over his back and let yourself down _gently_ onto his saddle."

It wasn't at all bad for a first attempt; Ivo flicked his ears back and then forward, and Xander looked startled. Giles eyed them both up and down. "My stirrups are too long for you. Strictly speaking we should have adjusted them before you got up. OK, look, like this." He went on talking, calmly, the way he gave instruction on any other subject, while he shortened the leathers and checked the girth again; then he held up the long black whip. "It goes across your thigh. Be careful to keep the end off him; he'll jump if it touches him. For the moment, just hold it so that you get used to it; remember, it's not ever used to punish him, it's just to get his attention. If you have to use it, you just shift your wrist and flick him with the very end. Don't wave it about. Now, reins, look, like this." He looked up. "Ready to move?"

Xander's expression was half way between amusement and terror; Giles laughed aloud. "It's all right, I've got the lead rein. He's not going anywhere you don't expect. You're going to tell him to move straight forward: give a little squeeze with your lower leg."

Ivo obediently stepped forward. "See, that's Go."

"What's Stop?" asked Xander nervously.

They established how to stop, and rough turns to right and left, and then Giles turned towards the track. "Send him forward; we'll go up into the woods. Sit still, and keep your back straight but don't let yourself go stiff; you have to move as he does. Keep your hands sensitive; remember, there's a metal hinge in his mouth, and if you faff your hands about, you can hurt him. Let him stretch his neck on the slope, yes, like that." He kept up a steady flow of calm reassuring instructions, making Xander concentrate on what he was doing. "Let go of the reins. Don't worry, I've got him. Now,  give me the whip for a moment. I want you to swing your arms. Stretch as far as you can, forward, and up, and sideways. There's nobody here to see if you look a twit. Can you touch his ears? And your own feet? You need to be supple, and steady in the saddle so that you're secure even if he does something you aren't expecting."

" _Everything_ is something I'm not expecting," objected Xander.

"All right, something _I'm_ not expecting. Are you ready to try some trot? Leave the reins, and look, take a grip on here. What I need you to do..."

Trotting was _difficult_ , Xander assured him breathlessly, after a hundred yards; Giles pointed out acerbically and equally breathlessly that Xander wasn't running alongside the horse. They had a walk, and another attempt at trot, and then, in a clearing among the trees, Giles explained about how to make Ivo move off Xander's leg, and unfastened the lead rope. Xander looked nervous, but he followed his instructions, and Ivo, with surprising patience, thought Giles, given that he was not accustomed to being ridden by a novice, allowed himself to be pushed and pulled in first one direction and then another.

"Not bad at all," approved Giles, attaching the lead rein again. "Another trot? Take up your reins this time, and let go of the saddle. Let him bounce you, don't try to stand up, just let his movement push you out of the saddle, and then come down softly. Ready?"

This time Xander managed well enough that Giles thought it worth explaining about how to steer at the same time, and after a couple of attempts, he could bring Ivo onto an admittedly wobbly circle by doing no more than looking inwards. Giles nodded approvingly. "Good enough. I think we may have just about exhausted his patience, though; that'll do us. We'll walk him back down so that he has a chance to stretch off; you have to be as careful with him as you are yourself to warm up and cool down."

Xander made an amused face. "I've never done anything like this before; guess I'll regret it tomorrow. Feels like I've used muscles in places I didn't know I _had_ places." He looked down at Giles. "I enjoyed it, though."

Giles took his chance. "I, I want you to enjoy what we do. I want you to enjoy your life here. Tonight, if, if you want, you may choose something from the box. Anything you like."

Xander was silent, although when Giles looked up, it seemed to be consideration rather than any disagreement. After a moment, Giles saw his throat work convulsively, and he held out the black whip. "This, please?"

He knew the surprise must have shown on his face: he had been thinking of the massage oil, or the beads; Xander looked a little uncomfortable.

"I, I, Giles, I..."

He reached up to put his hand on Xander's knee. "Calm down. I said, anything you like, and I, I meant it. I simply wouldn't have expected you to choose that, but if it's what you want..."

"I want marks," said Xander in a small voice. Giles waited; there was plainly more. It wasn't news that Xander liked to have marks imposed on his skin by Giles, and he wasn't normally shy about asking for them. Nonetheless, he had never previously wanted anything to do with the whip. Giles had used it when they had first made their deal, but Xander had admitted later that it really scared him, that it reminded him of Coblan, and Giles had put it aside, using it neither for punishment nor for their more esoteric enjoyments. In any event, punishment now meant Xander across his knee and nothing harsher than his palm.

Xander continued to look shifty and uncomfortable; Giles continued to look at him encouragingly. There _was_ more, he was sure of it, but it seemed that Xander's words had knotted up in his throat. He let his hand slide down from knee to ankle. "If, if it's what you want, you shall have it, but, but if it's just a matter of marks... That, rather than the strap?" For this was Scotland; a second hand shop had provided them with a schoolmaster's tawse in a box of bric a brac; the shop owner had thought he was selling them a set of brass door handles and palming off some other rubbish at the same time. "Or the cane? I'll use that if you want it, but, but do you, really?"

"I want marks. Something I can see." He looked nervously away, and added, "something I can feel."

Giles gave an involuntary snort of laughter; when they did this sort of thing, he was rough and he knew damn well that Xander felt it. He said as much. Xander shook his head.

"Not what I meant," he said quietly. "I want... I want his touch _off_ me, Giles. I want to feel something that isn’t _him_ , something I'll still be able to feel tomorrow. The next day. I want to be able to see it as well as feel it. I want _proof_. Like," and he blushed hotly, "like you did earlier, but I want it to last until I can't feel him any more."

Giles nodded, thoughtfully. He understood it, but... at the same time, he didn't want to use that whip. He knew that Xander was afraid of it, deathly afraid, and he knew why; he was loath to introduce into their life anything that would remind Xander of being helpless property. He smiled a little to himself, deprecatingly; of course, he regularly told Xander that Xander was his property, and Xander agreed, so that wasn't _precisely_ what he meant, but...

"I know the strap leaves marks, and the cane as well, but they aren't, they don't..." Xander was tensing up with the need to make himself understood, and Ivo's head was beginning to lift uneasily. Giles patted first Xander's leg, and then the horse's shoulder.

"All right now," he said reassuringly and meaninglessly, but Xander relaxed, and the horse mouthed the bit and settled again. They walked down the low slope quietly, the horse's hooves thudding on the leaf mould. Presently Giles became aware of his precise surroundings and smiled.

"Do you trust me, Xander?"

"Well, duh. Only totally."

He turned to look into Xander's face, his hand on Ivo's neck. "Not the whip. The whip is nothing to do with us, with, with you and me. Don't worry: I'll give you what you want, I promise, but, but not with that."

Xander stared at him, the hint of a smile touching his lips. "You're not gonna tell me, are you?"

He shook his head, smiling back.

"Guess I gotta go on trusting you then." 


	9. Part 3 - Giles 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: This is the BDSM section. And _this_ is the BDSM section.

If he really intended to teach Xander to ride, he would need to give it some serious thought; he hadn't realised how much explanation was involved even in something as simple (to him) as dismounting. He showed Xander how to run up the stirrups; he already knew about leading the horse.

"Put him away, Xander. The blue rug, make sure he's got water, the usual stuff. Make a fuss of him; there's a half packet of peppermints in the tack room: give him a couple. He's not a beginner's horse, and he's not really what I would have chosen to teach you on, but he was very careful with you. Pet him and tell him he's clever; groom him and check his feet, and he'll be more inclined to make things easy for you. When he's sorted, come back into the house." He touched Xander's shoulder. "You did well."

Inside the house, he paused long enough to arrange his plan into order, before searching in his side of the bedroom, and picking out a pair of his pyjama trousers. They were soft cotton, old and loose, and he decided on an elderly shirt of his as well, and then intruded on Xander's space to find the slave tag with its leather thong. All three were carefully placed on the wooden chair in the bathroom, and he flicked the switch that would provide hot water. He retreated to the kitchen, and inspected the contents of the fridge, frowning in concentration.

Back outside, he could hear Xander murmuring to Ivo, and the hiss of the brush; he leaned on the half door and Xander looked up at him with a smile.

"When you're done in there," he said abruptly, "and don't skimp it, make sure he's all taken care of, go inside and have a bath. Throw a handful of that muscle soak stuff in it too."

Xander looked at him quizzically; he added firmly, "I've laid out what you're to put on, nothing else." The look morphed to faint surprise, and he allowed his own expression to shift towards severity. "Is that clear, Kay? _Nothing_ else."

It _was_ clear; Xander coloured hotly, and Giles saw his whole body quiver, before his eyes dropped and he said submissively, "Yes, Master." He waited until he was sure Xander was concentrating on the horse again, before he took himself off, back across the road and into the trees, fingering the knife in his pocket.

His dinner preparations were well advanced when Xander emerged from the bathroom, properly attired in Giles' clothes; they looked at each other wordlessly for a moment. It was as close as Giles could get to the loose garments Xander had worn on Coblan, and he had a brief moment of concern, second-guessing himself about possibly bringing back traumatic memories, before he reminded himself that _he_ had given Xander what Xander had referred to later as 'owner clothes'. These were too big for Xander; the shirt was tunic length, and the trousers slid low on Xander's much narrower hips the way they didn't on Giles himself, but Xander still contrived to look comfortable in them.

"What does Master need me to do?"

He'd got it, then. Giles relaxed. "Set the table, please." He allowed a beat while Xander turned away, and added smoothly, "for one." Xander glanced back, plainly surprised, but he smiled, and did as he was told, coming back to start to tidy around Giles, washing up the cooking things as Giles finished with them. It amused Giles; Xander, it seemed, was keen to get to the main part of the evening's entertainment. He allowed himself to hang a hand over Xander's shoulder when he came back, to draw him in against his chest, arms wrapped around his waist, and to stand quietly that way while water boiled and vegetables cooked.

"Go and fetch the floor cushion; put it down beside my chair." They had found it in a second hand shop; Xander had wanted it because of his tendency to loll on the floor beside the stove while reading. Giles dished up neatly and carried his plate to the table, fixing Xander with a glare. "Kneel, please, here." So he wasn't nearly harsh enough as a master, but the slate floor was hard on the knees, even through a rug. He wanted to control Xander's discomfort, or at least that was his excuse. "Keep your hands out of the way. Rest them on your legs if you want; if they come up, you'll have to put them behind your back."

Xander folded them obediently on his thighs, and looked up hopefully; Giles smiled down at him. He hadn't fed his pet by hand since...

Not since Kay really _had_ been his pet, and they had eaten lunch in the park in the breaks between research sessions. His fingers trembled as he cut the meat; he controlled them ruthlessly. He had denied enjoying that then; now he was allowed to enjoy it and he damn well would.

Xander liked it too. Afterwards they washed up the few remaining dishes together, in silence.

"I'm going to lock up outside, and check on Ivo. If you have anything else to do, you should do it now, because when I come back in, I want that floor cushion on top of the little table, and you on your knees in front of it, ready for whatever I feel like doing."

He deliberately didn't look back.

He hadn't really doubted it, but it was nonetheless gratifying that when he came back with _something_ disguised inside his coat, Xander was where he ought to be, on his knees, looking calm. "Set the wards, make up the fire, and come back to your place."

He didn't watch. He didn't need to; Xander would set firm, bright wards and Giles could take the time to prepare himself. He used the bathroom and selected his own clothes to match Xander's. Kay's. Then, deliberately, he calmed his mind. If Xander – if Kay – were to be safe, Giles had to be totally in control of both of them. He crossed the stone floor, and carefully laid down on top of the cushion the item he had retrieved from the tack room; Xander's eyes widened.

"Do you know what it is?" It even _looked_ wicked: seven slender but branching switches, each one the length of his forearm or thereabouts, bundled together and with one end bound with cord to make a handle.

Kay shook his head, doubtfully.

“It’s a birch. Any one of those rods on its own would be enough to get your attention. Together?” He lifted it, and hissed it through the air, allowing Kay to see how it splayed, and flexed. “All the effect for you, much less work for me. With a whip, if I want marks over, say, the span of my hand, how many times would I have to use it? Five? Six? With this?” He swished it again. “Once. Do you see how the rods bend? They’ll curve around you the way a strap does, and each one of those limber little ends will sting ferociously – all at once. If I use this on you, it will hurt you a good deal, and it will mark you. You'll feel it for a day or so, and see it for longer." He waited. This needed _express_ consent, and Kay was trembling, but he lifted his eyes to Giles'.

"Yes, Master."

"You haven't done anything to deserve it, not as a punishment. Are you afraid of it?"

Kay swallowed again. "Yes, Master."

"You're right to be." He waited for three heartbeats. "Do you want it?"

It was hardly more than a whisper. "Yes, Master."

Inside he went limp with relief at having judged correctly what Xander wanted; physically he couldn't afford to show it. He moved behind Kay and knelt, his thighs outside Kay's, his chest to Kay's back, arms gently around Kay's body. He kissed the presented nape and shoulders, allowed his hands to run tenderly down Kay's arms, over his back, around his hips and thighs, using the touch to convey everything his reserved nature struggled to say aloud. This was communication at its most basic, and Kay, it seemed, understood him perfectly, arching his back, leaning into Giles' touch, and smiling, eyes closing. Giles slipped his finger to the shirt buttons and Kay's hands came up to help; he lipped lightly at an earlobe and kept his voice down to a breath. "No, let me do it," he murmured; he might be Master and Kay might be his pet, his possession, but that didn't mean that Giles should be other than respectful, and Kay's hands fell away, although he wriggled a shoulder free and pushed up to allow the trousers to be taken from him.

Giles set a large warm hand in the middle of his back and pressed gently to get Kay up on his knees, chest and stomach on the big cushion that rested on the coffee table. He rose, less gracefully and reached past Kay's back to lift the birch, allowing the very ends to whisper down Kay's back. "I'm not deciding on a number; I'm simply going to give you as much as I want." He waited for the little shiver. "If it's _really_ too much?"

Kay nodded. That was enough. He had safe-words, he knew how to use them. He never had.

Very well. He started very lightly, with only a light snap of his wrist. The birch was unlike anything else he had ever used: the individual rods flared in the air and there was almost no resistance on contact, but Kay jumped as if startled. Giles sympathised. When he had made it, he had experimented in the tack room against his own thigh; he knew that was no more than sting with no serious after effect, but sting there certainly was. He flicked it again and again, across Kay's arse, down his thighs, watching him wriggle. He seemed unable to be motionless, but as soon as Giles stilled, Kay settled too, easing slowly into the cushion.

Well. He tried again, a little harder, watching Kay tense and relax. He was breathing faster now, squirming against the cushion; the birch was raising tiny weals, almost like scratches, and Kay's skin began to flush into an uneven mottle. Another half dozen and he was becoming noisy, gasping, a note of pain sounding in every out-breath. He slowed. It would be a shame to rush this, a shame for both of them. He let the birch tickle, up Kay's back and down again with a smart rap across his arse, eliciting the first buck.

"Excellent," he approved. "A reaction. I won't ask if it hurts: I can see that it does. It's going to hurt a great deal more before I've finished with you. You're quite red already in some places, but I think I shall colour you from here" – and he swiped briskly across the broadest part of Kay's backside – "down to _here_ ," and he flicked a stinging blow six inches above the backs of his knees; Kay leapt like a fish, obviously having expected something else. "You won't sit tomorrow, not willingly, I don't imagine, but I think I shall order it. No cushions. You'll sit on the wooden chair, and if I catch you squirming, I'll take you across my knee and add some more heat." Kay was squirming already, hips shifting forward and back. "Let's try... I know. Back away from the table a little. More. Yes, there. Now, keep your chest down, weight on it. Hands under your balls, hold everything out of the way." Kay's back tensed nervously. "And legs wide. Wider. Wider still. Lovely." He watched carefully to make sure that Kay _did_ have everything vulnerable held safely out of harm's way; then he applied the birch lightly to the inside of a thigh.

The squeal was accompanied by an instant break in position; he backed away at once, half expecting a safe word, but it didn't come. Instead Kay babbled something bewildered, and slowly put himself back the way he had been, legs wide. Giles smiled to himself, but he kept his voice stern. "I should think so indeed. Did I give you permission to move?" He let the tips of the rods whisper across the violated skin.

"No, Master. Sorry, Master."

"Oh, you will be," he promised, darkly, and swung again at the same spot. Kay bucked, and his legs half straightened, lifting his arse more temptingly than he perhaps intended. Giles waited for him to settle, and repeated the stroke in precisely the same place. The buck was higher, stronger, and the squeal closer to a wail. Again, and this time there was no doubt: Kay yelled, his feet drummed on the floor, and he writhed. Giles waited for him to still.

"Other side," he said in a businesslike tone, and Kay sobbed.

The reactions were as strong as before, and when he paused again, Kay's face was wet and strained. "Hmm. What next? I think... Yes. On your feet. Now, bend, nice and tightly. Forearms on the coffee table. Legs apart."

He stared. He had seen Kay – seen Xander – opened to his gaze before, but never like this. This took vulnerability to new limits. The hanging cock, regaining stiffness as he looked (he was well aware that Kay's arousal had come and gone over the course of their interaction); the lightly furred balls, tightening as Kay shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other. The red and wealed cheeks, widely parted with his stance, revealed _everything_. He set a finger to the very top of Kay's cleft, feeling him jump and flex, and with extreme delicacy, drew it downward, over sensitive flesh, hesitating at the wrinkled hole, and passing on to the tenderness of his perineum.

"Shall I strike you here?"

That, he thought in amusement, would be a No; he had rarely heard Kay beg with such sincerity, although for all his desperation, he didn't break position, and the specific words for which Giles listened with such care never came. No, the fragile arse was offered to him as surely as the bruised buttocks. Kay didn't _want_ to feel the slender ends of the twigs kissing between his cheeks but if Giles wanted to do it, Kay would try to endure it. There were tears now, dripping from his face to the fabric of the cushion cover, and his breath was coming in great gulping gasps but for all that...

"Arch your back. Push your arse up. Present yourself to me."

He _must_ keep a grip on his own desires, because Kay's willing submission was a powerful drug. He rapped the birch down one thigh, quick smarting flicks, enough now to exact low sobs, and Kay danced lightly on his toes – but his forearms stayed flat on the low table, so that every shift was merely a new angle of the delectable arse. That had to be repeated on the same thigh, and the sobs were higher pitched and more desperate; he changed legs and marked the other thigh the same way, this time without a break half way. Kay was squirming and stamping, but his head stayed down, his arms braced, his arse lifted.

Three hard strokes across the presented buttocks; even without his deliberate intent, the wickedly fraying ends of the rods ventured into tender territory and Kay howled. He flicked again at the pinkened thighs, no weight in the strokes but every loose frond of birch stinging. He changed sides and laid three backhand strokes low on Kay's backside; Kay was all but beyond speech, and with the flurry on his legs again he was reduced to snatching desperate breaths, his sounds of dismay no longer resembling words.

When Giles paused again, he could see that Kay was done. His arms were giving under him; his knees were bending, and he was recovering himself with a jerk, pushing back to position, and failing again.

"Kneel."

It was more of a collapse. Giles knelt too, coming close to hold Kay, tugging him back until he was almost sitting on Giles' lap. The heat from his skin bled into Giles' thighs; Giles braced an arm across him and pulled, forcing Kay's weight against him. Stillness was apparently impossible: Kay squirmed helplessly and pointlessly. Giles let his left hand wander, stroking Kay's hair back from his wet face, sweeping the tears from his cheekbones, before trickling down to tease and tug at a nipple. Kay's head thudded back against Giles' shoulder, but his hips continued to make little jerks as he tried to find ease for his arse. Giles' hand ventured lower; Kay was half erect again, and Giles ringed his cock loosely with his fingers, pulling once or twice, and then opening his hand so that the flushed head rested on his palm. Now every involuntary squirm behind added the slightest imaginable rub in front, and Kay's hands closed tightly on Giles' forearm. He was whimpering, soft breathy noises that made Giles' own cock swell, as if the constant wriggling were not enough to bring him to a state of almost unbearable arousal. He began to move a little himself, against Kay's shifts, and the pressure and friction on welted skin drove Kay's hips into ever greater movement. Giles cruelly eased his palm still further, until Kay's cock, now thickened and slick, skated wetly over it with every movement, racking up the stimulation while denying even the hint of future release.

"You look wonderful like this." It was breathed into Kay's ear. "Maybe tomorrow I'll keep you naked all day so that I can see what I've done to you. Maybe I'll do it again. Who do you belong to?"

It seemed that Kay couldn't speak: he gasped twice, his hips driving uselessly forward towards Giles' hand, and then he turned his head, straining round to kiss Giles' jaw.

"You're mine," Giles told him fiercely, and he nodded, eyes shut; "you're mine and it shows in that tag at your neck. It shows in every mark on your skin. Yes, tomorrow you can dress to go outside, but as soon as you step inside again, even if it's only for five minutes, you're to strip. In here, you belong to _me_. First thing tomorrow morning, you'll be spanked over my knee; after that I'm going to lube you up. All the time you're in here, you'll be naked. You'll be spanked often, not for any reason except that I want to do it. I'm going to check your arse often too: you're to keep yourself slick and loose, whether you're in here or out there. When I want to take you – and I will – you're to be ready to receive me, whatever way I fancy. You may come as often as you like, but you'll find that a spanking _after_ you've come stings a damn sight more than one before. You _will_ find that because I'm going to spank you on at least one occasion both before I fuck you and afterwards." He swallowed hard, wrestling with his self-control. "Once a day between tomorrow night and Saturday, you're to come to me and ask to be spanked. Ask me to keep your arse hot and red and sore, the way my pet's arse ought to be, so that he remembers that he is _my_ pet, he belongs to _me_. It will be my choice whether I give you a nice light little spanking, just enough to make you wriggle and warm you up, or a proper thrashing that will make you cry, but you choose when it happens. That will be extra to anything I feel like giving you."

Kay's cock was jerking helplessly against Giles' palm. He took his hand away. "I'm going to give you three more strokes with the birch now. Get up, put the cushion on the floor, kneel on the coffee table, near the end. Lean forward over the edge and get your elbows on the floor."

Kay whimpered, but he didn't move.

"Four strokes."

"Master, please... please!"

"Five. Or use your safe-word; tell me you can't do it."

Kay moved. Slowly, stiffly, he uncoiled himself from Giles' lap and rose. His legs wobbled and he put a hand on the table to steady himself, pushing the cushion away and taking its place. He crawled awkwardly to the edge and leaned over; Giles stood up and put a hasty arm around his waist, steadying him for the ungainly drop. His head rested on his clasped hands against the floor.

"Knees apart. Now hollow your spine." He couldn't keep Kay there long; the strain on his back would be excessive. "Beautiful. _Beautiful_." He _was_ beautiful, opened to anything Giles wanted to do, totally exposed. The table was sturdy, he had tested it earlier while Xander was outside; he stepped up onto the wooden surface. Kay was almost totally inverted in front of him, weight so far down that he was helpless. The now ragged rod touched one cheek, not crosswise, but up and down.

"Oh, please no!"

The birch fell, briskly but not harshly, once to left and once to right; Kay squealed. "That's two."

Two more, harder, each drawing a wail and a long squirm. "Knees wider."

"No, no, nonono..." but the knees were slipping, the thighs parting obscenely wide and Kay sobbed harshly as Giles touched the birch gently into the space between his cheeks.

"Arch your back. Push up. Open yourself to me."

Kay made a keening sound of visceral fear even as his body did as it was told; his shoulders were shaking with the strain as Giles carefully, silently, transferred the birch into his right hand, leaned forward, and flicked one fingernail lightly against the vulnerable arsehole. Kay made a weird noise that started as a yell and strangled into a 'huh?' and Giles laughed aloud, broke a single twig out of the birch and tapped it with no force at all into the gap. Kay's arms gave; he slid off the table with a jump and a yelp, rolling to his side and staring up at Giles. "You said five," he objected indignantly. "That was six!"

"I lied," agreed Giles cheerfully, stepping off the table. "Or maybe I miscounted. Shall we start that last round again?" He leaned over and ran his hands with infinite tenderness over Kay's welted arse. "No, we won't, I think. Come here."  He encouraged Kay to his feet and then to the couch where Giles drew him down, curled sideways, head against his Master's body.

"Beautiful," murmured Giles again, but that had not been the point of the exercise. "Who do you belong to?"

Kay spoke to his Master's chest. "I'm yours."


	10. Part 3 - Giles 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific chapter warnings: This is still the BDSM section. Embarrassing cuddling and making up. Also a punishment spanking. Yes. Really.

Pat and make much, Giles thought, in amusement; that was the phrase his riding instructor had used at the end of every lesson thirty five years ago. He slid his hand slowly over Xander's damp skin, fingertips light over weals, palm firm on whole flesh, whispering praise, and Xander was limp and pliant to his touch. Presently, though, he began to respond, offering small sounds of pleasure and pushing into Giles' hand, like an animal wanting to be petted. When Giles thought he was completely back, that it was Xander again, not Kay, he spoke. "Are, are you all right?"

Xander stretched awkwardly. "Think so."

"Come on. Bed."

He walked Xander slowly to the bed, a supportive arm around his waist, and lowered him onto his stomach. "I'll be back in a minute."

He came armed with a small towel wrung out in cold water which he laid across Xander's hips, half surprised not to hear it sizzle; Xander bucked beneath it before settling with a sigh of relief.

"Better?"

"Yeah."

"Thirsty?" He had brought water, and another cloth which he handed over for Xander to wipe his face and chest; he took it back, and ran it down Xander's spine. Xander collapsed limply again. "Let me look at you." He peeled back the towel, and leaned over, examining the scarified skin for any breaks. Xander gasped at his touch, and Giles hushed him gently. "It's like tiny scratches. I want to be sure there's no real damage, and, and that everything's clean." He was very gentle, just laying the cloth on and taking it off again, not rubbing at all. "Tomorrow you're going to be sore as hell."    

"Yeah." It was hardly more than a sigh, but the tone was one of the greatest satisfaction. "Giles? Thank you."

He trembled with the knowledge of the power he held over this man, the power that this man held over him, and he leaned over to touch his lips to Xander's neck and back, following the cloth down. Xander squirmed, and Giles, unseen, raised an eyebrow, smiled, and braced himself above Xander's hips. Slowly, he smoothed the damp cloth onto Xander's skin, peeled it back and followed it with his tongue. The cloth ventured around Xander's thighs, carefully between his cheeks, testing for anything that hurt more than expected. Giles followed: everything was licked softly and kissed until Xander was purring with relaxed pleasure. Then Giles slid an arm under him, tugging and pushing until Xander pulled his knees up, arse raised once more; he jumped when Giles blew on the hot skin, whined when Giles set his teeth lightly in the muscle, whimpered and shuddered when Giles rimmed him. Shuddered, but arched his back and splayed his knees once more in only half conscious invitation.

Giles frowned and drew his fingertip gently between the parted cheeks; Xander jumped and made a startled sound. Giles' own sound was regretful. "I think not: you're swollen. Not badly, it'll be gone by the morning, I expect, but I don't want to hurt you."

Xander considered this and gave a snort of laughter; Giles smacked him lightly and got a yelp. "All right, I _do_ want to hurt you; I don't want to _harm_ you and I think I might. Something else."

Xander rolled onto his side and eyed him darkly. "You won't harm me," he said dismissively.

He wasn't standing for that. At other times Xander's opinion carried the same weight as his own; Xander half out of his head on endorphins, on the other hand, was not liable to show good judgment. This time the smack was hard, and meant to be hard; Xander squealed.

"Who makes the decisions when we do this?"

"I just think..."

Harder, a genuine punishment spank.

" _Who_ makes the decisions?"

"Giles, I'm only saying..."

It was _not_ negotiable, and never had been. The thing they had negotiated was that it was not negotiable. As soon as it got to anything serious – which basically meant anything that would still show after an hour – then what Giles said, went. Always. If Giles was doing too much, Xander had his safe-words. If Xander thought that Giles was doing too little, too bad. He could open a discussion at another time but in the heat of the moment, it was not his decision to make.

It was something he tended to forget in the _literal_ heat of the moment. Giles hooked an arm around his waist, and hauled him back to his knees. "You're arguing with me. Is that wise?"

"I just..."

He kept the spanking short – Xander really _was_ sore, and he was quite well aware of the incongruity of hurting him further when his objection was to hurting him further – but made it sharp enough to have an effect even on somebody still feeling the rush of what they had already done. " _Who_ makes the decisions?"

Xander's eyes were wet.

"Sorry. You decide."

"Because?"

"Because you're Master and I do as I'm told." It was decidedly not sulky, Giles would give him that; if anything, it had a yearning desire about it. He pulled Xander up, and steadied him for a kiss.

"And because?"

Xander looked blank. Giles clarified. "Because it's my job to keep you safe. I'm not joking, Xander: you're swollen, and you're as high as a kite. I could fuck you and you would let me and you might even like it, but tomorrow?" He kissed Xander again, and took note of the downcast expression: Xander – who genuinely _was_ high – was obviously about to plunge from the summit to the depths, wondering if he had spoiled Everything with a capital E. "You needn't look as if I've drowned your puppy. I have other ideas."  He grinned lasciviously. "I _always_ have other ideas."

Xander laughed outright. "G-man, you have so many ideas... I can't believe we thought you were a boring librarian who never had sex. Even when we knew you had sex with Mrs Summers and Olivia and Ethan Rayne and Miss Calendar, we thought you didn't have sex."

"I had Spike, once," Giles said demurely; Xander's eyes went wide.

"Does Buffy know?"

"I doubt it. We'd been drinking, and we agreed afterwards that it hadn't happened. I don't know which of us was the more horrified. I would prefer not to think about it, specially when I have my pet ready to please me in wanton and hedonistic ways. You can start by undressing me."

Not that there was much undressing required: his clothing mirrored what little Kay had worn, but Xander took it from him as gently and respectfully as he had done himself, touching and kissing skin as he revealed it. Giles took a shuddering breath, although he tried to disguise it.

"Now, lube."

Xander frowned, plainly not understanding, but he reached obediently into the drawer beside the bed, and offered the battered tube.

"Use plenty: I haven't done this in a while."

It actually took Xander a moment to catch up. "You... You want me to...?"

"I believe I just said so," murmured Giles. It wasn't necessarily _easy_ to bottom when the whole basis of the relationship as they had demonstrated it for several hours was that he was Top, but it could be done. Xander's expression was one of total amazement; perhaps another demonstration was in order. "Make it good for me. Make it exceptionally good. Show me what an obedient pet you are. Your job is to serve me and to please me; I've given you an order and I expect to have it obeyed." He tapped lightly, but warningly at the side of Xander's thigh. He had no particular objection to seeing the shift back to Kay if that was what worked better for Xander. "Now, please."

He got a flashing smile, and Xander's mouth, applied all the places it would do most good, followed by careful, slippery fingers, also applied all the places they would do most good. He let his own fingers drift, fascinated by the heat radiating from Xander's skin, and the little sounds Xander made when he touched particularly sensitive places. For all his commands, Xander hesitated when Giles spread his thighs and canted his hips, and it took a light slap to convey to him that obedience was expected, but then it was given whole-heartedly, and Xander did indeed apply himself to make it exceptionally good for Giles. He didn't rush, and he gave more attention to Giles' pleasure than to his own, and Giles took his pleasure largely because he knew that it was what would please Xander. He curled a hand around Xander's arse, squeezing, working for both the wince and the shudder of delight, and eliciting a response that carried elements of both. The analytical part of his mind told him not to delay release for either of them; Xander would come down from his high soon. The less academic part of his mind told the analytical bit to shut up, and not to say or do anything that would distract Xander from what he was doing. That sound was his own voice; he only realised that he was saying 'mine, mine, _mine'_ with increasing fierceness, when Xander's gasped syllables changed from 'yes, _yes'_ to 'yours'. He was faintly embarrassed by that, but not enough to argue about it.

One of them – he wasn't certain which – shouted when he came.

The second round of cleaning up was rather sketchy; Xander was suddenly exhausted, limp and heavy eyed, and Giles pulled the bedclothes carefully over him, and retreated to the bathroom to bring him water and analgesics, which Xander denied wanting. Giles scowled at him, and set the bottle by the bed. "If you wake up hurting – and I think you will – you're to take them, and that's an order. I think tomorrow you'll be sore enough for anybody's kink needs." He climbed wearily into bed, and reached for the light switch, adding severely, "Don't forget you've a spanking or two to come, and a riding lesson. That won't help you much."

"Giles!"

He kept his face straight, even in the dark, and his voice under control. " _Several_ spankings, and I'm going to fuck you, and a riding lesson." Not a riding lesson: Ivo wasn't reliable enough that Giles would risk putting on his back a man who was squirming and giving less than his full attention to what he was doing and in any event, he was damn certain that his own knees wouldn't be up to walking any distance, or running alongside the horse, but it wouldn't do any harm to have Xander thinking about it.

Xander pushed himself up on one elbow, trying to see his face, and then slipped back down to lay his cheek on Giles' shoulder. "Huh. And I'm naked in the house?"

"If you recall, I said as much." Giles would have to see if there were any of the multi-vitamin pills left in the bathroom cabinet: in the aftermath of something as intense as this had been, Xander would be all over him the next day, if past experience was anything to go on. He tried to think of some way to ask about Xander's emotional state. "I trust that you know now who you belong to?"

He felt Xander's lips on his shoulder. "Totally. I am _so_ yours. Giles, have you ever thought about how weird this is?"

Weird? That Giles was in bed with a man twenty-five years his junior? That it had happened because that man had been kidnapped and enslaved by a demon? That they _knew_ anything about demons? That he had been trained to look after a woman who could kill demons? That the man in his bed was, at least part-time, his pet? That he could carry out what would, under other circumstances, be considered a serious criminal assault, possibly as far as grievous bodily harm, and be thanked and begged for more? No, not weird at all. He limited himself to a mildly enquiring sound.

"I mean, I screw up, I screw up so badly that it might have gotten both of us killed, and all I get is a bare-ass spanking with your hand, and ten minutes of standing in the corner. And then I'm upset so you give me a treat..."

Yes, he would buy 'weird'. "And I beat you non-stop for most of an evening," and his arm closed around Xander's shoulders as he added in his deepest and most severe voice, "with a nasty whippy birch rod, applied to your bare backside until you're crying and you can't sit down."

Weary or not, sated or not, Xander shuddered against him. "Yeah. Yeah. And I totally love it. Not while you're doing it but afterwards? And before as well, kinda. Well, totally. That thing is... I never even thought of anything like that.”

“No? Very Victorian. Old-fashioned, even by my standards. Another time – oh, yes, I think there will be another time – another time, I’ll make you put up your own rod.”

Xander sniggered. “That can’t mean what it sounds like it means.”

“It means,” explained Giles sternly, “that next time, you have to go and cut the birch yourself, and then trim all the switches to the same length, and bind the end. You have to make the instrument of your own punishment. If you don’t do it properly, I’ll send you back to do it again, and again and again until I’m satisfied. Then you stand it in salt water to keep it supple until I’m ready to use it.”

“Like making your own paddle? That’s mean.” Xander sounded remarkably undisturbed by the concept. “Mean and cruel and you’ll _so_ make me do it, won’t you?”

“Absolutely,” he confirmed, still in his relentless voice; he knew a request when he heard one. “Worse than making a paddle because a birch doesn’t last: you have to make a new one every time, and all the time you’re doing it, you’ll be thinking about what it’s going to feel like, because now you _know_ , and you’ll be remembering that if you try to skimp on the quality of the rod, I’ll be adding strokes to the tally as well as sending you back to do it again.”

“Mean and cruel and _evil_. Giles, I'm not arguing," carefully. "You said you wouldn't fuck me, and well, you said not so not. But you didn't hit me there – and yay for that, I am totally not arguing about that either, I was _way_ scared that you would, although I kinda wanted you to, not because I wanted it but if you did? If that makes sense?"

Giles nodded, his cheek against Xander's hair. He understood it: Xander submitted to things because Giles wanted to do them, and the excitement for him was the submission and the plain fact of Giles imposing his will.

"But you didn't so..."

"Touch yourself," Giles suggested; Xander shifted in the darkness and did.

"Oh. Yeah. It's not sore," he assured Giles, "but yeah, I can feel it's not... But you _didn't_. So...?"

Giles slipped his own fingers down to meet Xander's; Xander shivered. "It's just the little birch fronds, the thin loose ends of the twigs. You didn't notice particularly at the time, but... I shall look in the morning." The shiver was more pronounced; the boy was insatiable! He gave him what he wanted. "Before your morning spanking, I think. I shall inspect your arse closely; I expect you will be recovered enough for me to use you. Inspection, and I shall slick you and loosen you, and after that you can have your spanking – and believe me, that will be an experience like none you've ever had before. A spanking on a well-birched bottom? – and after that..." He let his voice trail away ominously; Xander was squirming against him, half aroused _again_.

"I'm to be naked in the house, and I'm to be slick and ready for you all the time," he whispered.

" _All_ the time," confirmed Giles, wondering if he had iron tablets as well as multi-vitamins. He was bloody exhausted and if he gave Xander what he plainly wanted the next day he would go _on_ being bloody exhausted. A puddle of sexual satisfaction, but bloody exhausted. He needed to rest, and so, frankly, did Xander, so that he wouldn't crash completely. "And if you don't stop talking and go to sleep, you can have a preliminary spanking now." He flicked his fingers lightly against a rounded cheek; the adrenaline was wearing off enough that Xander did wince, but he sighed, and murmured "Yes, Master." In half a minute his breathing was evening out; in two he was asleep.

Giles thought of shifting to get Xander's head off his shoulder, but it seemed unkind. He closed his eyes, and started his normal pre-sleep routine of planning the next day's tasks. Become a puddle of sexual satisfaction. Turn Xander into a Chadless column of emotional security. Plan some equestrian instruction. Call Buffy. Quarterstaves, they needed to do some work with those, and he didn't have any. The U-bend under the kitchen sink was leaking again, and the kitchen floor was filthy. He needed a haircut. He had intended to introduce Xander to the Blackwood Codices but he couldn't find a free copy online; he would have to see whether his social rehabilitation was sufficient with the Council for him to be able to have a copy sent from the library. Knife-throwing, Xander hadn't done any of that and it might be a useful task given that they were both likely to be in less than top physical condition.

Whoa. Call Buffy?

He examined it from all angles, surprised to find that while he had been concentrating on other things – a bare-arsed, submissive and totally spankable Xander – he had apparently decided that the rift with Buffy had lasted long enough. It didn't appear to be something requiring further decision-making. He added the detail to his To Do list. Call Buffy, and make some preliminary investigation into undoing the abjuration. He smiled evilly. That would annoy his fa- the Council even more than the original circumstances. Yes, call Buffy. Speak to Willow.

Spank Xander.


End file.
